


Awakening

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-07-22 22:13:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 57,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7455850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Michael and Lincoln go on the run, they first stop by the hospital to pick up Sara. Goes AU from 2x01 (Lincoln/Sara).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sara

**Author's Note:**

> I initially wrote this as a one-shot, a way to cope with Veronica's death in 2x01. But the characters wouldn't let it lie and eventually it developed into my first multi-chapter Lincoln/Sara fic.

When the brothers show up in my hospital room in the middle of the night, whispering feverishly about me being a target and this being for my own good, I am understandably skeptical and not all that anxious to go anywhere with them.

Although seeing Michael again, and in normal clothes with a baseball cap and glasses he doesn’t need is such a shock to my system, I’m surprised I have words at all, either to argue, or later to capitulate with. They know things, and when Lincoln says in a deadpan voice that they killed Veronica and he isn’t going to be responsible for any more deaths, I feel something in my chest that won’t allow me to say no to either of them.

I remove my IV and get dressed quickly, leaving the hospital with little fanfare. No one would expect me to run, because I haven’t copped to anything as yet. I’m under suspicion, but they have no real proof. It will take days before they even suspect I might be with Scofield and Burrows. And in the meantime, I will be hidden from the invisible threat I am living under.

Six days later, we’re in this rundown motel in Missouri, in the middle of nowhere, and it’s all part of Michael’s plan. We’re hiding in plain sight, and it worries me, but I have no experience with this sort of thing. An hour into the car ride, Michael informed me, “If we get caught, you tell them we forced you to come with us. We wanted your medical expertise. We held you at gun point, and you repaired a wound for Sucre before we went our separate ways.” He made me repeat it back to him for an hour until I could say it like it had really happened, even though the other convicts were nowhere around and they wouldn’t tell me where they were when I asked.

Lincoln’s son, LJ, is also with us, but the three of them don’t talk much, and I realize it’s because they’re in mourning. Veronica meant something special to each of them, and they aren’t getting a proper funeral or chance to say goodbye to her. It’s hard to be with them under these circumstances, but then again, it would be hard to be with them no matter what.

I’m angry with Michael, but there’s never a good time to address that as he’s constantly planning our next steps. He occasionally leaves the motel without explaining what he’s going to do or how long he’ll be gone. Instead, he just turns back up with food for all of us or other items he needs. LJ eats like every meal is his last. Lincoln hardly touches anything, an indication that his grief is his sustenance right now.

My time consists of watching the television and listening for new information and avoiding Lincoln and LJ’s sad faces. It takes me a while to realize I’m more angry with Michael for ignoring me now that we’re together than for all the things that happened before. I’m mostly angry with myself for what happened before; for allowing him to get under my skin and then turning to my vices as a way to deal with how he got to me. The good thing about being here with them and doing nothing really, is that there’s no chance I can break again. There are no hypos or little medicine bottles anywhere.

The motel has two rooms plus the bathroom. The TV is in the front room, which is where Michael spends most of his time scouring over sheets of paper and examining his arms for information he’s hidden in his tattoo. That’s one thing he’s told me since we’ve been here, because I asked him what the hell he was doing as he contorted his body to read something on the back of his left biceps. His eyes had jerked to mine. “This is the plan. I wasn’t a structural engineer who moonlighted as a punk rocker, you know. This is how I made the plan.”

His condescension make me want to scratch his eyes out.

When he leaves again, I toss the remote at LJ and get up to use the bathroom. Lincoln’s son changes the channel from CNN to some rerun of _Saved by the Bell_.

Coming out of the bathroom a few minutes later, I glimpse Lincoln lying on the bed in the other room. His forearm lies over his eyes and his chest I heaving and it hits me suddenly: he’s crying. I glance into the front room and see LJ busy watching the antics of past Saturday mornings, oblivious, at least for the moment, to his father’s pain. Michael, out getting food or some other top secret item, isn’t there to help absorb the unhappiness with the random conversation the brothers sometime exchange, and I feel like if I just ignore it, I would somehow be ignoring the whole reason that I’m here.

“Lincoln?” I ask softly, easing down on to the bed next to him.

He jerks in surprise, his arm flying back to slam against the wall. He scrambles into an upright position and mutters swear words under his breath. “I’m all right,” he says before holding out an arm to keep me from touching him.

“Are you sure?” I ask. I don’t try to touch him, because I suspect his defensive gesture is more for his sanity than because he doesn’t want to be touched.

His other hand rubs over his eyes fruitlessly, tears still trickle out. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Yes, I’m fine.”

“It’s all right if you’re not fine, Lincoln. You lost someone you love. This is an extreme situation.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. The desperation in his voice cuts into my heart.

This whole time, since I learned they were brothers, and more especially, since I figured out the lengths Michael had gone to save his brother, I’ve often thought this was the way it was. Michael: the methodical brainy one; Lincoln: the passionate, emotive one. One gets himself thrown in jail for uncontrolled behavior while the other purposely enters prison with a grand scheme. But here is another difference between them: Michael keeps me at arm’s length, not allowing me in even if I wanted to (which I don’t, I remind myself); Lincoln is silently begging to be comforted, to be held closely. “You don’t have to talk,” I hear myself say. I stretch out my hand tentatively towards him; he’s wearing a short sleeve t-shirt, and my hand skates up the furry softness of his forearm caressingly. The physical contact acts just as I suspected it would. He makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and full-throated cry, and I feel the muscles of his arm bunch under my fingers.

“Sara,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s ever addressed me as something other than Doctor.

“It’s all right,” I say, the soft cooing of motherly words issuing from my throat as easily as anything I’ve ever done. “Come here, Lincoln. It’s all right.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, but his body arches toward me. I lean forward and scoop my hands around the ball joints of his shoulders, tugging him into me. When his cheek grazes mine before his chin comes to rest on my shoulder, the wetness of his tears feels warm and familiar. Then his arms grasp me tightly, the permission given to grieve fully finally dripping through his body. His big frame leans into mine, much too heavily, yet I hold him with a strength I didn’t know I possess.

My fingers trail across the nape of his neck, softly touching the hair that is growing longer by the day now that there aren’t weekly buzz cuts. I feel his head turn into my neck and his lips open in a gasp of pain and I shush him in that motherly way again, rocking him left and right pressing my other hand into the middle of his back to hold him securely to my body.

I hold him until his tears are spent. I don’t know how long it lasts, and it doesn’t matter. I would go on holding him as long as he needed it. His size and strength cover a great capacity to love and I think of Veronica Donovan - how I only saw her two times. Once in the dim light of a little apartment where she voraciously showed me documents and paper trails that proved this man’s innocence. And again in the dim hallway leading to the execution chamber, her love for him trembling on her eyelashes. Their love and devotion to each other has cost them so much, Veronica her life, but Lincoln his heart. Which is a greater price to pay?

When he pushes away from me, he does it gently, somewhat ashamedly. “It’s all right,” I say again quietly.

His eyes glance off mine and he nods without much authority. “Thank you,” he says, his voice rough, his face haggard.

I find my hand cupping his jaw carefully, my fingers smoothing over the new lines around his mouth. “Holding it in won’t help.” My eyes become entranced by the slight plumpness of his lips. He compresses them into a tight line and nods again with a shaky breath rattling in the small space between our faces.

A swamping emotion hits me, no longer his pain, but instead feeling my own thoughts funnel into a flare of heat around my heart and in my thighs. Lincoln is Lincoln, his own person, his own entity with his own influence upon me, and nothing about Michael enters into it. His hand rises to gently touch my cheek and his eyes drop for a moment to my lips. It’s so brief, I know it can’t be that he’s suddenly as aware of me as I am of him, not with his broken heart staring out of his deep blue eyes into mine. His rough fingers brush down my face, tracing the line of my chin softly. “I really appreciate this, Doc.” Then he pulls away and throws his legs over the other side of the bed, turning away from me.

“Michael should be back with food soon.” For some bizarre reason, I need to bring Michael back into the room.

“Good. Maybe I can eat a little today.”

I stand up and look down at his back as he stays sitting on the bed. “That’ll help you feel better, if you make yourself eat a little more every day.”

“Right, Doc,” he says, turning his head slightly to give me a small mirthless grin.

It nettles now, being called by my title. “You can call me Sara, Lincoln.”

There’s a small pause before he says, “No, I don’t think I can.”


	2. Michael

We’ve been on the road almost an hour when I hear Linc ask quietly, “So, when did you start using?”

Because I monitor her every move, I sense Sara’s frame stiffening with the discomfort that question must bring, and I say “Linc,” and shake my head, our eyes meeting in the rearview mirror. LJ’s beside me in the front seat and he glances over at me, but keeps quiet. Lincoln’s eyes pierce mine for a small moment before they turn back to Sara.

It’s been two weeks since we snuck into her hospital room and got her to leave with us. And I’ve spent every day of those two weeks looking for a chance to say I’m sorry, to find a way to say something that will let her look at me with something other than coldness in her brown eyes. Every time I open my mouth, though, the shittiest things come out. I find myself saying things to her as if she were stupid, or explaining things with this tone in my voice that suggests I’m irritated by her questions. It isn’t how I feel, but it’s still how every situation sizes up. She’s slowly stopped asking questions as a result. It’s like all the closeness I felt to her in Fox River dissipated with going over the wall and I don’t know how to get it back.

So Lincoln, who barely talks anymore because of Veronica, asks her the one question that’s none of our damn business, not to mention it’s my fault that she relapsed. Next time we stop for any reason, LJ is going in the back seat with Sara.

But then her soft voice says, “I started smoking pot in high school. It escalated from there. When I got into medical school,” she pauses here, and it’s her voice not her words that lets us all know that’s when it got really bad. “I had access, you know. By the end, before I got help, I shot up every day.”

Lincoln blows out a low whistle. “I only did needles a couple times. It scared me too much.”

“What scared you? The needles?”

“No, how much I liked it.”

“Yeah,” is all Sara says, a wealth of understanding in the word.

I grip the steering wheel more tightly, hating that the only way I can get any insight into her is by eavesdropping on a conversation between her and my brother. But it’s not really like eavesdropping, they’re talking quietly, but not in a way that excludes me and LJ. I can’t find a single thing to say, not even a subject to divert the conversation, so I just keep listening.

“I mostly stuck with weed. I’d do other shit from time to time, but nothing regularly, besides alcohol. That was worse for me than the weed, because if I drank – Tequila especially – I usually got mean, and when I got mean, I’d beat someone up. Got 10 months one time for beating the hell out of this guy…”

Lincoln doesn’t finish the story, and I know why. The guy he beat up was a study partner of Veronica’s. He caught them together and jumped to a crazy conclusion and before anyone could stop him, he’d put the guy in the hospital. That was one of the events that led to a long break between them, and helped Veronica decide to go to Texas for law school.

“Anyway,” Lincoln clears his throat. “How long had you been clean?”

I can’t help myself, I look over my shoulder into the backseat. Sara’s eyes flicker upward and meet mine briefly, then they move back to Lincoln. I face forward again as the car starts to hug the double yellow line. I jerk the wheel a little and LJ’s hand flies up the grasp the window frame.

“Four years, five months, 18 days.”

Another low whistle from Lincoln. If I could, I punch him right in the gut. “You need a meeting, don’t you, Doc?” he asks.

“I’m having one, aren’t I?” she responds, and I can hear the smile in her voice. My stomach roils and it hits me that all the things Sara and I may have had in common, education, humor, even a similar moral code, because I could tell we were the same, at least the me I was before I went into Fox River, pales in comparison with what she shares with Lincoln. Humanity. I’ve never been jealous of my brother; there was never any need as we never liked the same sort of girls, and Veronica was always more like a sister to me, except for that one night when we almost…

This train of thought is ridiculous. It’s just a conversation they’re having. Lincoln isn’t looking at her like I look at her; he can’t even cope with what happened to Veronica because he hasn’t said her name aloud since the day we got LJ out of jail and Sara out of the hospital.

A little chuckle escapes Lincoln, a sound of light-heartedness, even though their conversation doesn’t even border on the light side. “I haven’t had a drop since I went in the joint, obviously. I think I could handle a beer, though.”

“Well, as long as I’m around, your aren’t having any,” Sara says.

“That’s right,” LJ pipes up, turning around to look at his dad.

I can’t help but smile, though it’s not a happy smile. Because LJ is me, ten years ago.

Lincoln’s voice is steady and strong when he says, “Yeah, LJ, that’s right. It doesn’t matter if I can handle it; I’m not gonna even go there. Let me finish my sentences, okay?”

“You swear?” LJ asks, his voice quavering. I hear so much pain there – his mother; his stepfather, who he didn’t like, but was a steady influence all the same; Nick Savrinn; Veronica. Adults he had counted on, all gone. He’s not letting that happen again, at least not without a fight.

“I swear, LJ.” I glance in the rearview mirror in time to see them tap knuckles in some sort of handshake that seals their deal. LJ takes a deep breath and sits back down in his seat.

“Utah state line,” I announce as I see a big sign ahead that says _Welcome to Utah!_

Lincoln leans forward, his finger digging into my shoulder. “All right, then. Which direction is Tooele?”

“Southwest. We’ll stay on this highway for about 50 more miles.”

“You want me to drive for a while?” he asks.

“No,” I say, imagining the silence in the car if I got into the back seat with Sara. I can’t face it. I grip the steering wheel firmly. “No, I’m fine.”


	3. LJ

Mexico is a beautiful place. When we walk out on to the white sands, I think maybe we could just stay here. Dad doesn’t need to clear his name. We don’t need to go back. We’ll just do what Uncle Mike says we should, keep going south until we hit Panama and open a surf shop. I could be a surfer guy. Why not? I’m only 16; I haven’t decided what I’m going to be yet anyway.

There’s nothing back in Chicago for us anyway. Everyone that ever mattered to me is dead, except for Dad and Uncle Mike. And now Doctor Sara. I kinda like her. I tried not to at first because I wasn’t real sure why she was with us or what she was about, but the truth is it’s nice to have a woman around. They make things nicer, you know, like they hand you a napkin when you eat dinner. And they expect you to wash your hands if you’ve been working on the car all day. And Doctor Sara, she’s real nice, and real pretty and she smiles at me sometimes with this look, like she knows how hard it is not to have a mom anymore.

I don’t call her _Doctor Sara_ out loud; I don’t call her anything, really. I think of her as Doctor Sara, because my dad calls her Doc and Uncle Mike calls her Sara. I’m sort of a cross between them, because I know I need to be respectful, but I’m also a little intimidated by her. She’s smart, and kind. She’s patted my shoulder a couple times with this careful touch, like she doesn’t want to invade my space, but she knows I could use a little squeeze or something.

Dad and Uncle Mike are surfing, and I’m just sitting on the beach watching them. This is a new hobby for them, and I go with them sometimes, but not today. I just wasn’t in the mood. Doctor Sara showed up just a minute ago with a picnic basket. That’s the other thing she does: she cooks. And she likes doing it, and we’re about the most appreciative group of guys she could cook for, so it seems to make her happy. Sometimes she spends all day working on something, and it always turns out great. I’ve had chicken about seven different ways now that we’ve been here for a couple weeks. We’ll leave soon, make our way further south, but it’s been a nice reprieve, not in the car for long hours, not constantly thinking everyone is recognizing our faces.

“Fried chicken, LJ,” Sara says, catching my attention.

I turn around and crawl over to the blanket she’s spread out over the sand. “Smells great,” I say, reaching for a drumstick.

“Potato salad,” she offers as she sticks a serving spoon into a big bowl.

“You like to cook, huh?” I ask.

She glances up, then looks back at the spread before us. “Well, I have to do something.”

“You’re a good cook,” I say because that doesn’t seem like the right answer. Maybe she doesn’t like doing it, but she feels like she has to cook for us.

“Thank you,” she replies, dishing up some chopped fruit on to her own paper plate.

An idea flickers in my brain. “Oh, I get it, you miss being a doctor, huh?”

She looks up at me again, only this time her gaze stays on my face. “Very perceptive, Mr. Burrows.”

“Maybe when we get to Panama, you can be a doctor down there.”

“Maybe,” she says, taking a bit of melon. She eyes me for a moment and then asks, “What will you do when we get to Panama?”

“Work in the surf shop with Dad and Uncle Mike.”

“Is that what you want?”

I shrug. “I want to be with them, so yeah, I guess.” I take a big bite of potato salad. “What about you?” I ask around the food. “You like hanging with us?”

“Please don’t talk with your mouth full.”

I grin apologetically. She’s had to ask that before. I point a finger at her and shake my head. After I swallow, I say, “Sorry.” I wipe my mouth with the napkin she hands me. “So, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Like hanging with us?” Like me? What are you doing here? You’re not Uncle Mike’s girlfriend, though I think he might like you to be. You’re not my dad’s girlfriend, because I don’t know if Dad’s ever going to get over Vee. I don’t know if I will either.

“Well, LJ, it’s not really a matter of hanging out. You know I didn’t come along because you guys are my buddies.”

“No, I know.”

“I like you, very much,” she says, and I feel a sort of warm glow in my chest. “I like your father and your uncle, they are good men. And I trust them, strangely,” she says, shaking her head as though she doesn’t quite believe she said that. “I came with you for my safety.”

“So you think you’d go back to Chicago, you know, if it gets safe again?”

“I probably would.” That’s all she says, nothing else. I feel a real disappointment at those words. “Don’t you want to go back, to your home?” she asks.

I shake my head and look down at my half-eaten drumstick. “Nah,” I say.

“No, I suppose that doesn’t seem like home anymore, does it?”

“I just want the guy who killed my mom, I want him dead. And I want my dad to be happy again. And I don’t think either of those things will ever happen.”

“Oh, give your dad some time. He’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know. He really loved Vee.”

“He loves her still, LJ, that’s why he’s having such a hard time.”

“Yeah. Right. You’re right. You wanna hear something strange?”

“Sure.”

“Sometimes I miss Veronica almost as much as my mom. I knew her most of my life, though there were long stretches when I didn’t see her. But she was there when my mom was killed, and she took care of me, and helped me, and I knew she really loved me…”

“It was like getting your mom back, a little bit.”

I look at Doctor Sara, and she’s got that interested look, like she really wants to know what I think, what I feel. She’s like Veronica, too, not just somebody that’s stuck listening to a kid, but somebody who really cares. “Yeah, it was, a little bit.”

I turn because I feel a shower of water hit my back. My dad is standing behind me, where he quietly snuck up, and he’s shaking his wet body like crazy, sending water droplets all over me. “Knock it off!” I shout, almost dumping my plate of food. He laughs wildly, and I see Uncle Mike about 20 feet back, coming up with both surfboards against his hip. “You’re getting my food wet!” But then I start laughing because he’s laughing, and it sounds like the most foreign, wonderful, beautiful sound that I haven’t heard in such a long time. I jump up and tackle him even though I know he will overpower me in no time at all.

It doesn’t matter. I love Mexico.


	4. Lincoln

Michael never lets me surf alone. I don’t know, maybe he thinks I’ll just let myself go, let the wave wallop me and then pull me out to sea. He doesn’t say anything, but it’s in his eyes, and it’s the flexing of his jaw whenever I say at some crazy hour that I’m going. He’ll want to say no, but he doesn’t because he won’t let me go alone.

I would never let the sea take me. I’ve still got LJ and I know he needs me more than ever. But Michael might be right in not letting me go alone. Because I could be careless, I could be fighting so hard against the thoughts in my head that I let the board get away from me. And we’re both novices, after all. You don’t learn to surf when you grow up in Chicago.

We took lessons from this cabana boy for five days. He gave us the basics, and I was quicker to catch on because I’ve always been physical. For Michael it’s more of a struggle, but he’s valiant, just like in everything he does. Since he was a little boy, I’ve watched his determination accomplish more than my natural abilities ever could. Pretty much if Michael sets his mind to it, he gets it done.

So he’s not a bad surfer, and I’ve discovered I love it. It’s a good way to burn out the restless feeling I have, all the damn time. I’ve tried to convince Michael that I need some time in town, but he’s positive that if we split up, or are away from each other for any length of time, that something bad will go down. Because he’s already done so much, and sacrificed his whole fucking life for me, I don’t argue that point.

The house we’ve rented, because we’re swimming in Westmoreland’s cash, is on the outskirts of Oaxaco City in southern Mexico, and is nicer than any of the houses (shitholes) we ever lived in growing up. Ironic, I know. It has four bedrooms, but LJ usually sleeps with me anyway, so it’s a little big. It’s funny how you can have a temperamental teenager who hates your guts for three long years, and then you have the same sweet-natured boy you remember cuddling as a baby reemerge as if the other never existed. LJ sleeps beside me, much the same way he did when he came to stay with me on the weekends, and I find comfort in that. It helps that my bed has someone in it, that I’m not alone.

I keep waiting for Sara to walk out of Michael’s room. Some morning we’ll meet in the hall, and she’ll be sleepy-eyed and tousle-haired and then I’ll take Michael outside and explain to him that I need to get some just like he did. But every morning, she’s already in the kitchen cooking like mad, and Michael sits reading newspapers or checking out information online to see what is being said about us, if anything, in the States. If they ever talk about whatever their problems are, I never see it, hear it, whatever.

I avoid being alone with Sara at all costs. She’s an amazingly strong woman, who I’m pretty sure my brother is flipped for. She shows her strength in everything she does. From that day when she held me in the motel room in Missouri, I knew her need to nurture would work wonders on LJ, and he’s really blossomed during the time we’ve spent with her. The fact that she cooks as much as she does is both to cover her boredom, but also to feed us. You know, _feed us_. That’s how she’s trying to help heal us. If we have good food, well-prepared meals, balanced diets, then we’ll be able to get over all the shit that’s gone down. We’ll be able to move on with our lives.

I need a woman. Any woman will do, and that’s why I stay away from Sara. First of all, she’s Michael’s, and second of all, that’s all we need is the weird tension of did-that-mean-something when I know it’s only one giant step away from the memory of Veronica. I need to feel some other woman, nameless fine, but not faceless, so that I don’t have to see her every night when I close my eyes. I need it bad, worse than I need to just get off. That’s happened a few times in the shower anyway, and it’s not enough. I need the smell, the softness, the sound of a woman under me. Sometimes I feel I need that more than anything else I can think of. More than innocence proven, more than a chance to go back to my old life, more than mock enthusiasm for Michael’s surf shop idea.

I’m in the back yard of our little house, just sitting, enjoying the warmth of the setting sun, when Sara comes outside. “Hey, Lincoln, dinner’s almost ready.”

She walks over to the lounge chair I’m sitting on and when I look up at her, she puts he hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. She’s been doing these sorts of things the entire time we’ve been living here all domestically together. She always touches me, just casually, just with a certain amount of familiarity but without any demands. “You know, you don’t have to do all this.” I’ve thought it a thousand times, but never said it before.

“I know.” She does stuff like that, just barely answers a thought. I wonder if it drives Michael crazy.

“Then why do you do it?” I ask, prodding for more, wanting more from her.

“Because I need to do something. I need to keep my hands busy. Otherwise, I might be thumbing it out on the highway into town for something I really don’t need.”

Of course, I should have realized. I actually never think about getting high or getting drunk, I’m too worried about getting laid. Sara’s troubles are of the monkey-on-you-back variety, not a tyrant-in-your-pants. “If you need to talk…” I start to say.

“Oh, yeah, like I don’t see you run the other way when I come around.”

I feel my face flush.

“It’s not like I think you need to bawl your eyes out every day, you know Lincoln. But if you did, it would be all right.”

I shake loose from her hand and get to my feet. She’s so stupid. She thinks I’m embarrassed about crying on her shoulder? My problem is the hard-on I got when we were so close together. My problem is her soft skin and her breasts, and her ass, because even though she seemed a little too thin when we first rescued her from the hospital, all the good food we eat has filled her out again and she looks good. And she’d look even better naked.

“If I’ve been – distant – it’s just all the thoughts in my head…” I point a finger at my head and run it in a circle to indicate the speed that my brain turns with every stinking day. “Ask Michael, I tend to be a bit self-centered.” I walk away, pacing over the green grass towards the fence that keeps us separate from our few neighbors.

“No one’s as self-centered as Michael, so he ought to know.”

I jerk around at her remark, and see a bitterness on her face that tells me what I’ve wondered about. She and Michael haven’t worked anything out. “Michael’s the least selfish person I know,” I say rigidly. I can’t believe with all she’s witnessed at his hands, at his planning, that she could ever develop this opinion of him.

“Least selfish in what way? The big sacrifices? The grandiose plans? What about a simple, ‘I’m sorry I used you?’ or an explanation that says whatever the hell he feels when he stares at me. He never tells me.”

“Doc, if you don’t know he’s sorry, no amount of him telling you will make a difference.”

“Quit calling me Doc!” she shouts.

LJ appears in the doorway, and he’s halfway through his question before he feels the tension in the atmosphere. “Hey, is dinner ready?” His eyes slide back and forth between us and he bites his lip.

Sara’s face transforms, a smile replacing the anger that had suddenly appeared. “Yes, it is, LJ, I was just telling your father it’s time to eat. Will you find Michael? I think he’s in his room?”

“Sure thing,” he says, smiling at her. I can see it as plainly as I’ve seen anything. LJ loves Sara, and when this ends – _because God in heaven, it has to end_ – it’s going to be hard for him.

I’m disheartened to see that she’s such a good liar. Of course, most addicts are practiced liars. Veronica was the only one who ever knew when I was lying. Even Michael couldn’t tell, but that’s because he needed me so much to be steady, to be stable, to be telling the truth, that even if he’d suspected a lie, he would have chosen to disregard it. That changed when he got older, and then I had a hell of time ever getting him to believe anything I said.

I push my hand through my hair, a habit I’ve reacquired now that I have hair again to mess up. I swing away from her again, knowing I have to confront Michael. He’s got to take care of this thing between them before it destroys the little Eden we’ve created here. Before we move further south into a life that’s more permanent. Because I honestly don’t think we’ll ever go back to Chicago.

She scares the hell out of me when she touches my shoulder and I realize she’s right behind me. “Lincoln,” she says. I whirl around and then stumble backwards into the fence. My hands flatten against the wood, holding me upright. “Look, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to…” She shakes her head, and her chin drops.

“You just need to talk to him. He’ll tell you what he feels, if you ask him.” Please just ask him, and get it over with, and get the hell away from me.

She looks up, and for a moment I see her questioning what I’m talking about. “Oh, Michael,” she says softly, like she’s remembering what she was upset about in the first place.

“I know he cares about you.”

Her eyes linger far too long on mine, and I’m reminded even more forcefully of why I need to go to town. Michael is just going to have to deal with me leaving. I’m not taking no for an answer. “I know he does, too,” she says softly. Then her eyes drop to my mouth, and I’m transported back to that motel room bed, with Veronica in my heart and in the lump of tears in my throat and the salty stickiness of my cheeks. Veronica’s everywhere, but nowhere, and I _want_ Sara. I want her hand on my cheek, stroking my skin and then I want to push her back, stretching her out on the lumpy uncomfortable mattress. I want to dive into her and forget about all the things that have happened to get us here.

Including Michael.

I brush past her forcefully. “Tell Michael I went to town,” I say and I don’t look back. I walk right through the house, grab the car keys and go out the front door.


	5. Sara

A week before our weird confrontation in the backyard, we were all on the beach, which has become a habit for us. Almost every day we go down there and we’re all getting very brown as a result, except Michael, who always surfs in a wetsuit. He never leaves his tattoo open for prying eyes. He feels too identifiable, and honestly, he’s right.

I say our confrontation was weird because I don’t really know why I said what I said or why Lincoln responded like it was true. I know if I told him I needed to talk, like an AA meeting talk, he’d do it for me. I have noticed he seems a little nervous whenever we’re alone together, but he’s not distant. Not distant in the way that Michael is. Lincoln asks me things, inquires about things that he’s obviously thought about.

Oh, who the hell knows? Maybe he asks me questions because Michael won’t. Maybe all of our conversations are just so he can report back to Michael. And I should just ask Michael and he’ll tell me what he feels. Whatever, he brought me here, he ought to do the asking, right?

Lincoln came up from the water and laid down next to me on a towel. I’ve been reading a lot when I’m not cooking, so this feels like the longest vacation of my life. That day, the book of choice had been _Memoirs of a Geisha_ , but I set it aside when he settled on his stomach next to me. Michael had been showing LJ some new surfing move he had perfected, but LJ tired of the perfecting long before Michael did and came up with his father to lie in the sun. I could still see Michael paddling out into the waves.

“How’s the water?” I asked.

“It’s amazing. I think the waves are bigger at the beach we went to last week though. We’ll have to go back up there soon,” Lincoln said, throwing LJ a towel so he could lie down on the other side of him.

“Well, maybe I’ll take a dip then, if it’s not too rough.”

“Not too rough at all.” He nestled his head into the square patch his arms made on the towel. His eyes closed, and he sighed contentedly. He doesn’t usually relax, so this display was a bit interesting.

“You really like surfing, don’t you?” I asked, instead of getting up to take that dip.

“Yeah. It’s good exercise.”

I propped myself up on an elbow to watch him. His beauty is less classic than Michael’s, but nonetheless compelling. I’ve found myself watching him, especially when we’re on the beach. I’m uncomfortable with that knowledge, but what can I do with it? I can’t ignore the fact that again and again my eyes are drawn to him, and usually I’ve been studying him for a while before I’m completely aware of it.

His eyes opened and caught me doing that very thing. “I’ve got a question,” he said softly.

“What’s that?”

“Was it suicide?”

I dropped his gaze because I knew what he was asking. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“Because…it’s more complicated than that. Isn’t it a chance, every time? You don’t know, your drug of choice wasn’t heroin or any of its derivatives. It’s sort of like Russian roulette every time. Did I want to die that night? Yes and no. I had broken the law, I had gone against my oath. Of course, I didn’t know it wasn’t just you and Michael leaving. I suppose I wasn’t too surprised about Fernando Sucre, but the others? Three are convicted killers.”

“Four if you count me.”

“I don’t count you.”

“Well, thanks, Doc, that means a lot.” I tensed, like I do every time he refers to me like that. I don’t know why it grates like it does, but sandpaper is exactly what I picture against my skin every time he calls me Doc. “So, it wasn’t suicide. It wasn’t a broken heart that cried for my brother that got you there?”

I snort before I can help myself. “No, it definitely wasn’t that.” My anger was always at myself, that I let him get close to me, that I let myself fall for it. He was a convict, and I should never have trusted a word that came out of his mouth. And I should never have let him kiss me.

“I know there's something between you two,” Lincoln said lowly, as if to keep LJ from hearing. Like I care. At this point it seems like it almost didn’t happen. _Almost._

“Well, even so, that wasn’t the crux of it. And, I’ll admit, there was something going on…I mean, yes, I left the door open because of how I felt about Michael. I knew you were innocent, and he pled with me… But it was how I felt about what I did that made me chuck my sobriety.”

His eyes closed again and he pronounced, “You don’t really strike me as the lovesick type.”

“Is that right?”

“You’re too strong, too independent.”

“Am I?” That’s not how I’d describe myself, but I know that I didn’t shoot up that night because I was in love with Michael. Now I don’t even know if I was ever in love with him. I think I might have been. But my last thought as I put the needle in my arm was my father’s face when he learned I’d left the door open for a couple of convicts to escape.

 

 

When Michael and LJ come into the kitchen, Michael asks, “Where’s Linc?”

“He went to town.”

“He _what?_ ”

I glance at LJ pointedly as he moves to scoop up some lasagna, then back at Michael. “He needed to get out.” I anticipate that Michael will head for the door, and I move to block him. “He took the car, so unless you’re planning to chase him on foot, I don’t think you can really stop him.” He pushes against my hand, which rests on his chest. “Michael.” He looks at me, deeply into my eyes for the first time since we’ve been together outside the walls of Fox River. “He _needed_ to go. You have to stop worrying.”

His eyes close, a defeated expression coming over his face and then he nods. All his movements are reluctant, including his moving back from me. We head over to the kitchen table with LJ, who eats every meal like it’s his last. At first I thought it was the situation, but I understand now, it’s just that he’s a teenage boy and he has a bottomless pit for a stomach.

It would be a silent event if not for LJ. “So, Dad will come back, won’t he?” His voice is casual, but his eyes are not.

“Of course he’s coming back,” I reply, feeling a ridiculous need to defend Lincoln.

“Yeah, LJ, he just went…” Michael seems unable to vocalize whatever his thoughts are.

“To hook up with someone?” LJ inserts.

Michael smiles, and to my surprise it’s real, like some of the smiles I remember from Fox River. “Yeah. To hook up with someone.”

The rest of dinner involves various questions from LJ and then they start laughing when they remember a trip they took to Lake Michigan when they were much younger. Their camaraderie is different than Michael and Lincoln’s. Even though Michael is much older than LJ, their memories are from a shared childhood. I get the feeling that Lincoln was always the boss, and with Michael’s entrance into Fox River, a transfer of authority occurred. Ever since we’ve been here, it’s been switching back, and whatever happened in the backyard earlier pushed Lincoln to the point of not caring what Michael had decided.

LJ leaves the kitchen to watch television after he helps me with the dishes, and I go to Michael’s room, where he’s on his laptop, like usual. He spends a lot of time online, and I know it’s the planning, planning, planning that keeps him sane. He doesn’t blame Lincoln for leaving the house in a huff, he just wishes his brother would think things through. Tapping on the door with my fist, he looks up at me and gestures to come in with his head. He’s sitting at the desk he bought the second day we got to Oaxaca City.

“Can we talk?” I ask, sitting on the bed. I know it’s my pride that kept me from this moment, and I’m still wrestling with it. What am I doing this for? My peace of mind? Clearing the air with Michael? For Lincoln?

“Sure,” he says, and he folds down the computer screen. When I don’t say anything immediately, he sighs and leans his elbow on the desk, resting his chin on his knuckles. “I know Lincoln’s stir crazy. You don’t have to lecture me about holding on to him too tight.”

“I didn’t come in here to talk about Lincoln,” I say, yet suddenly I want to ask Michael questions about his brother. I want to know things about Veronica and what their relationship was. I want to know if Michael realizes Lincoln thinks the surf shop idea is ridiculous. But I know he doesn’t know any of those things. Lincoln has spent his lifetime deceiving Michael and Michael has spent a lifetime believing the deception.

He raises his eyebrows. “Really? I thought he was your main focus.”

The starchiness in his voice shocks me. “What?” I ask. “Nevermind,” I say, shoving it aside. I don’t want to get into a discussion about Lincoln; it’s all too complicated. Complicated in a different way than this moment with Michael. “Why is it, Michael, that we’ve been together outside of the prison almost as long as we were together on the inside, yet I don’t know anything more than I did there?”

“You know more. You know why I did what I did.”

“Yes, but I don’t know why you came to get me.”

“For your safety.”

“Stop it,” I say angrily. “I know the obvious answers, Michael. I’m asking _why_ you came to get me.”

He rubs his head agitatedly and gets to his feet. He hesitates, and I can sense he wants to pace the room, a quality he shares with his brother. Instead he leans his hips against the desk, and looks down at me. “It was Lincoln’s idea. I wanted to…I’m so sorry about what happened, Sara. I don’t know how to make you believe that, but it’s true. I knew about your drug use, because like everything else, it was part of my research. I never anticipated you would relapse…” He shakes his head. “Anyway. I planned to make it right, somehow.”

“I know, I got your note.” I take a turn at shaking my head. I run my hands down my jean-clad thighs and take a deep breath. It’s so strange because I didn’t come in here to confess to him, but it occurs to me now that I can’t get him to reveal so much without doing the same. The idea that he thinks he could have ever anticipated my relapse shows me he has no idea what it’s about. Did he blame himself every time Lincoln got high and did something stupid? Looking at his face, I know the answer. The culmination of Michael saving Lincoln in Fox River was just the bigger version of a many-times repeated repertoire between them.

His openness makes me wish I had asked sooner. “What do you mean, it was Lincoln’s idea?” I ask, getting back to the point he made that I need more understanding of.

“They killed Vee. When we got LJ from the courthouse, we found out that Nick Savrinn, Lincoln’s other attorney, was also killed. We were planning on leaving town, but Lincoln remembered that you had gone to see Nick and Veronica the day of the execution. He wondered what they might have told you, and just felt – and I agreed – that we shouldn’t take the chance with your life. So we went to get you. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to say, to tell you…”

“Ever since then, you’ve hardly spoken to me. Six weeks, Michael. Six weeks you could have told me even the CliffsNotes version of this tale, but you didn’t say a word. What am I supposed to think?”

He watches me unwaveringly. His eyes hardly even blink and I’m suddenly faced with the Michael Scofield whose penetrating stare would follow me home at night and make me wonder if I was losing my mind. “Sara,” he says, moving towards me. Then he kneels in front of me and his eyes…his eyes. “I’ve wanted to, I swear, I just don’t know…” His hand touches my cheek, and my breath freezes in my chest.

“You don’t know what?” I ask, trembling now with emotions I remember, but didn’t know I could still feel.

His other hand comes up and his long fingers frame my face. “I don’t know how to be what you need.”

What I need? Before I can wonder what that means, his lips touch mine, and I’m back in the Infirmary doing something I shouldn’t, but want with all my heart.


	6. Michael / / LJ

She tastes just like I remember, and when I press a little, she lets me slide my tongue right past her lips. Like that day in the Infirmary, it’s better than I expected, better now than I remembered. A breath trembles in her chest and then she makes a small sound, like she’s confused. My hands come down on her thighs, trapping her hands against her legs.

I want to touch her _everywhere_ , I want to _kiss_ her everywhere, but it would take more strength than I have to pull my lips from hers, so I just go on kissing her mouth. Our tongues move against each other, our lips press harder together and then pull apart to get a better angle, a deeper taste. I kiss her like I have all the time in the world to do it, but I know that I don’t. I know this can’t go on much longer, because we’ve hardly talked and kissing isn’t the answer to what we have talked about. But I’ve wanted it for so long, and she’s so responsive and it feels so damn good.

Her fingers extend under mine and then she pushes against my hands, and I break away from her mouth, gasping for breath. Our foreheads touch and our labored breaths bounce off each other. She whispers, “Michael,” and I shush her, because I just want the moment to be a little longer, I want this to be more than it is.

In the silence, I think maybe we’ve found neutral ground. She can forgive me, and we can start a real relationship, one not based on subterfuge and manipulations. 

Then she stiffens, pulls back slightly, and starts hitting me.

At first, it’s just one hard push against my shoulder; then it’s her fist doubled-up and she makes this sound in her throat that’s a cross between a growl and a howl of rage and I freeze. I stay on my knees in front of her and let her go. By the time she tires of hitting me, tears stream down her face, and she shoves me hard until I fall back on my ass, out of her way so she can get to her feet. “Sara, I’m sorry–”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Her hands cover her face and swipe tears in all directions. “You…” She takes a shuddering breath. “God, I hate you Michael. I hate you, that you can just…be so unaffected!”

“I’m not unaffected!” I wonder if she was even awake during that kiss. I sit on the floor, afraid to get up on her level, afraid she might launch herself at me again. She can’t hurt me physically, but the blows to my emotions are more than I can handle. I’ve known since we got here it can never work. As much as I want it to, as much as I wish it was different…

“As long as you’ve got your plans, you never deviate!” she shouts at me, and it’s an accusation and a pronouncement.

“I didn’t plan that,” I say, jabbing a finger at the bed.

“Oh, really? You didn’t think a little kiss might make me forget everything?”

I shake my head and look at the floor. I don’t think a lifetime will make her forget. So I say the only thing I know, the only thing that remained true from the moment I entered Fox River to the minute I left it. “I had to save my brother.”

She makes this strangled sound that causes my eyes to jerk back to her face. She’s got her fingers pressed to her lips and she’s nodding wildly. The only thing that makes sense is that she has felt the sharp piercing pain that it would be: a world without Lincoln. She knows that I had to do it, but it doesn’t change the fact that any relationship we may have had is irreparable.

“And you hardly knew me, I was nothing but part of the plan,” she says, wiping tears more gently from her face.

“It was two months, Sara, _two months_. No matter how quickly I began to feel something deeper for you, it could never change the outcome. I had to get him out. I’m sorry you were hurt, and involved, and I’m sorry you’re here, dragged away from your life, but…”

“You wouldn’t change a thing. I know.” She walks to the door and stops before going through it. Resting her head on the edge of the wood, she looks at me, and I have no idea what she thinks. For once the inscrutable one is at a loss. I don’t see the caution with which she found herself liking me, nor the helpless reprimands she held in her eyes when I came in injured but wouldn’t reveal what had happened. “I’m glad you saved him,” she says, almost to herself. “I wouldn’t change certain things, either Michael. But I don’t know…if I can come back from this. It almost destroyed my life.”

And she doesn’t mean that we’re on the run now, and that things are up in the air. She means the needle in her arm, and the fact that I helped put it there. I drop my head again and rub my hand over the top of it. “I know,” I breathe out. I’ve always known. And somewhere, deep inside me, a flame burns. It’s small, but steady, and I can’t help but think I brought her here for Lincoln. I don’t want that to be the answer, but it is.

Softly, she says, “I’m sorry.”

I look up. “For what?”

“For being so screwed up that I can’t bounce back. For being…”

“I seem to have an attraction to those types,” I say with a small smile. I see it now, why I liked her. In an odd way, she always reminded me of Lincoln. She warned me, she stood up to the C.O.’s for me, she went to the warden when she felt it was in my best interest, she forced me to go to the warden when it _was_ in my best interest. She protected me, in her way, just like Lincoln would’ve if he could have. And all the time I was a strain, dragging her down. Lincoln said he was the anchor, but I know now. He’s the buoy. I’m the anchor.

 

/ / 

 

It’s after midnight when I quit pretending I’m watching TV. I start pacing in the living room, wondering where the hell my dad is. He’s been gone for hours, and I keep praying that all he did was find some chick he liked. But maybe he’s drunk somewhere, or even trying to drive that way, and he’s going to get caught and then we’ll be right back where we started.

My heart is pounding, and I’m just about ready to start walking into town, no matter how long it will take, not only to get there, but then to find him once I am there, when Sara comes walking down the hall. She’s in her bathrobe, and rubbing at her wet hair with a towel. “LJ, you should just go to bed. He’ll be home soon, I’m sure.”

I stop pacing to face her, wondering how she can say that so calmly, like she knows something. She doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t know my dad, and how he acts. She doesn’t know that I’ve been here before, waiting on him, only to be disappointed either because he never showed up or when he did, he wasn’t right. “You don’t know that,” I say, and I hate how my voice shakes.

“He wasn’t thinking about alcohol or drugs when he left here. And he might be gone all night, so it would be better for you to sleep anyway, the morning will get here much more quickly that way.”

“Why would he be gone all night? He’s already been gone…” I look frantically at the clock. “…for five hours.”

“He might stay the night…with whomever.”

“Or maybe they caught him? And he’d never tell them where we are, so we won’t know until it’s on the news. Oh, man, Uncle Mike was right, we should always stay together!”

She moves closer to me, putting her hand out to grab my wrist. “LJ, calm down. Look, it doesn’t do any good to –”

But before she can finish her sentence, the front door opens and he walks in. There’s probably about ten feet between where we're standing and where the door is, and he looks at us questioningly as he shuts the door behind him. He flips the overhead light on, which I had turned off a few hours before, so it wouldn’t look like I was waiting up for him. We blink in the soft glare, and I can see that his eyes are clear, and he’s fine. He looks at Sara for a long time before he finally turns his eyes towards me. “Waiting up, Dad?” he asks me, his lips creeping up into a smile.

I can’t help it; I break away from Sara and throw my arms around him. “You can’t be gone so long like that,” I say. I’d give anything not to have tears break through right now, especially with her watching, but I can’t stop them. Dad’s arms come around me securely and one of his hands fits itself to the base of my head.

“It’s okay, kid. It’s okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re right.” He just holds me tighter, and that seems to squeeze more tears out of my eyes, so I bury my face in his shoulder and shake my head negatively. “I’m sorry," he whispers again. “LJ, I’m sorry.”

He smells like cigarette smoke and definitely some type of perfume, but there’s not a drop of liquor on his clothing, much less inside him. I’m so relieved that more tears pour out and I feel like such an idiot.

A few moment pass, but I finally gain control, so I step back. I try to play it off, but his eyes are full of concern and he grabs my face in his hands and forces my eyes to meet his. “I won’t ever stay gone that long again, not without calling. I swear it, LJ.”

I nod and choke out, “Good. Deal.”

He claps my shoulder with a big hand and then says, “You should get to bed.”

It’s the dumbest thing in the world to say, but it just shows me he’s still my dad, so I smile and glance over at Sara. She smiles, too, and then I walk down the hall. As I turn the corner to our bedroom, I stop, leaning my head against the wall, just taking a couple deep breaths. Then I hear my dad say, “Was he a basket case all night?”

“No,” she says. “I just found him out here, though, obviously upset. I tried to tell him you might not come home until tomorrow.”

“Why would I be gone that long? That probably just made him more worried.”

“Well, Lincoln,” Sara says, and there’s this tone in her voice. I know it well, because I heard my mother use it on my dad when he did something that annoyed her. “If you found someone you really enjoyed, how were we to know if you wouldn’t spend…a great deal of time with her?”

“Well, that’s none of your fuckin’ business.”

“I didn’t say that it was.”

“Well, anyway, I’m home. And I won’t do that again, I won’t scare him again. Or…inconvenience you.”

“It wasn’t an inconvenience. I like LJ, I don’t mind helping out.”

“It’s not like he needs a babysitter.”

“I know that.”

“Who put a burr under your saddle?” he snaps.

“Nobody,” she snaps right back and then I hear her footsteps as she starts to come down the hall. I start to move to the door of mine and Dad’s room, because I don’t want to get caught eavesdropping but he must stop her because her footsteps fail to continue.

“Doc,” he says, “did you talk to Mike?”

“That’s none of your…business.” I know she thought about repeating exactly what he had said, but for some reason she doesn’t use the f-word. I smile to myself. She’s probably one of those people who only says the f-word when she’s _really_ mad. Although, if I was her and Dad was bugging me about whatever’s going on between her and Uncle Mike, that might piss me off.

“Doc,” he says again, a plaintive note.

“We talked, yes. But, I’m not talking to you about it. Just leave me alone, Lincoln.”

I put my hand on the doorknob, knowing at any minute I’m going to get caught, but I want to hear what they say.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

She sighs, and it sounds so sad. “I-I…think so. I think I will be.” There’s a long pause, then she says, “Are you okay?”

He chuckles, just a little sound, and then he responds, “Yeah. I’m better.”

I slip in the bedroom, and quietly shut the door. When Dad comes in a few minutes later, he smiles at me and starts to pull off his shirt. “Did you get any?” I ask.

“If you must know,” he says with a leer, “yes, I did.”

“Good. The Doc told Uncle Mike you needed to go, so I guess she was right.”

“I’m sorry I scared you, man,” he says as he lies down on the bed.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I was such a big baby about it.” I lay down next to him, watching as he wads up the pillow under his head.

“Next time, I’ll take you with me,” he says, winking.

“Gross. No, thanks. I don’t want to do it with a whore.”

“I didn’t do it with a whore. There were some nice girls there.”

“Nice girls that you never met before?” I ask.

“When did you get so choosy?” he demands, poking me in the ribs with a finger.

I shrug. “I don’t know, I just…there was this one girl, back home, I really liked, before all this started…”

Dad flips up on to his side and looks at me intently. “You had a girlfriend?” he asks.

“Kinda.”

“Did you love her?”

“Kinda.”

“You’re like your Uncle. He was always more…emotionally inclined, let’s say.”

“I know you loved Veronica.” He just looks at me, and it makes me wish I hadn’t said anything. It was mean, and there’s no taking it back now. “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have–”

“Look, LJ, when it’s like that…when you can have it with love, you should. That’s a good thing. It is. But sometimes, you just…need something else.”

“Like when you can’t have what you want?” I ask. I think I understand, even though it makes me feel sorry for him.

He flops back down and sighs again. “Yeah, exactly. When you can’t have what you want.”


	7. Lincoln

Two days after my return from my night out, I hug the toilet and throw up harder than I can ever remember throwing up.Having gone several rounds with Jose Cuervo in my day, that's saying something. And wondering about karma and all that…it crossed my mind. Was Vee watching me and calling me every name in the book for blaming her for my uncontrollable libido?

If Vee can see me, I imagine her disgust is over the fact that I want my brother's girl more than it is over the fact that I random sex with someone I met in a bar. We always had boundaries, Michael and I, and we never crossed those lines, ever. There was never even any temptation, until now.

It would help a lot if Sara didn't watch me with those sad, brown eyes and look like she's about two steps away from asking for me to hold her. It would help if I saw Michael put his arm around her and care for her the way she needs to be cared for. She's battling something as difficult, actually probably more difficult, than me. Veronica is gone, yes, and it shoots pain through my body wherever I think of how I caused it, and how she would have been safe if she'd never met me. But then I know that she would've rather died trying to help me than being safe somewhere knowing she hadn't done anything. That's probably the heavier knowledge. She loved me that much, and I never showed her enough how much I love her.

So that's what I'm thinking as I'm puking up my guts in the middle of night when I hear someone come in the bathroom behind me. "Lincoln?" she whispers, kneeling next to me on the tile.

"The flu…that's all it is. Go away, Doc," I saw, holding my arm out to keep her back.

Her cool fingers wrap around my forehead though, and she pushes my arm out of the way. Another wave of nausea rolls through me, but my stomach doesn't heave. She stands up and turns the water in the sink on and then I feel a wet washcloth against the back of my neck. When I start to protest again, she says, "If you're going to insist on calling me 'Doc,' the least you can do is let me act like one when I get the chance."

I don't respond, partly because she's so snappy and bossy and partly because I'm afraid to open my mouth again anyway. She reaches up and flushes the toilet, sending the contents of my stomach out of my sight. I drop my head down on my folded arms over the toilet bowl and close my eyes. I'm reminded of the night we first tried to escape and Michael had given me whatever that pill was to induce flu-like symptoms. That was a pretty horrible night, for a lot of reasons, but Sara was there with me then, too, and I feel some sort of comfort as she keeps her hand pressed to the washcloth.

Then I remember I'm only in my boxers, and when I jerk my head up to say something, she whispers, "I'll be right back." When she returns, I feel the warmth of a blanket over my back and she tucks the ends of it around me. "You're shivering, from the fever," she says softly. I feel hot and cold, but I think it may have more to do with her than the fever.

After a while, she says, "Why don't we get you back in bed? I'll get you a bowl so if you have to vomit again, you have something to catch it. You'll feel better if you lie down and get some sleep."

She helps me up and I point to the spare bedroom, the one we never use because LJ sleeps in my room. She keeps her hand on my back, and with the blanket around me like a shawl, we make it in there. After she gets me settled on the bed, she leaves to get the puke bowl. I have another memory, this one involves my mother, though, and I smile. When I was a kid, getting sick wasn't fun, but having my mom make me chicken soup and mix orange juice with 7-Up always made it worth it.

When she comes back I ask, "What time is it?"

"About three in the morning."

"Well, thank God LJ sleeps like the dead. I'm sorry I woke you."

"No problem." She goes to the closet and gets another blanket. When she spreads that over me, she says, "You need to stay warm, let the fever do its job. You'll be better in no time."

"Thanks, Doc," I mumble. I can feel my eyes already closing, but then she sits down next to me on the bed and they fly open. Her hand smooths over my forehead again. Then she takes the washcloth, which I'd lost track of, and runs it over my chest and shoulders, just wiping gently. I stop her hand with my own. "You don't have to do this."

"I haven't had a patient for a while, you might just have to let me do this."

Our eyes meet and I, despite my rolling stomach, feel something I shouldn't. I close my eyes to eliminate it, but it doesn't work. My fingers tighten on her wrist and what I want is so potent and powerful that I shudder. The worst part about coming back from the city the other night was walking in the front door and seeing Sara in her bathrobe. She was standing there with LJ, and my body was completely relaxed due to its earlier activities, but that didn't change a very simple fact. I still want her. It hit me in the doorway. I wanted someone for all the reasons I knew I needed it: for Veronica, for three years behind bars, for a moment of escape, to feel like a man again. But I want Sara, for what she is, and who she is and the fire I see in her.

And it makes me feel like shit, all the time, not just when I've been heaving into the toilet.

She tugs my hand from her wrist with her other hand and says, "Just relax, Lincoln."

_Yeah, right._

Surprisingly, the longer she ministers to me, the better I feel. But I can't sleep, so we talk softly. First, it's nothing but household information we pass back and forth, and she gets out of me what I like to eat when I'm sick and promises she'll send Michael and LJ to town with a list in the morning. She sets the washcloth aside and pulls the blanket up so my bare shoulders are covered. Then, in a voice so soft, so hypnotic, she says, "Tell me about Veronica."

So I do. I tell her about our childhood, the three of us running around everywhere together, and then later when I got older, faster than the two of them, and pulled away, trying like hell to keep Veronica out of my life. I tell her about when I discovered I loved Vee, lying on a bed in a jail cell. I tell her about my marriage breaking up because of that love and how valiant Veronica was in trying to make it work between us. How she forgave me more times than I ever deserved and how eventually she had to go away because I kept screwing everything up.

"We tried again, when she came back from law school," I continue, having no idea how long I've been talking. "It was pretty impossible to stay away from each other, if we were in the same city. But she had really grown up, and I was still doing the same ol' shit, and she just… She was too good for it. We hadn't seen each other in years when I got indicted for Steadman's murder. But she was there, everyday, with Michael in court, hoping that it was going to work out. It's funny now to think about, because she was there, instead of with her fiance. And then she tried to help Michael when he got his ass thrown in jail…and then that led her to start digging." And that was the end of Veronica, I think morosely. "She wasted her whole life on me. Her whole fuckin' life."

Sara's fingers brush at my forehead, checking my temperature again, but then they slide down my face, and she's no longer being doctor-like. "You can't dictate to your heart, Lincoln. She was doing what she wanted to do. She believed in you, and she had to do something about it."

"And I let her. I let her because I needed her to believe in me. I needed her eyes to hold me up."

"We all need that, someone, anyone who believes in us. It kept you alive. You're so lucky. You had Michael and Veronica."

"Yeah." I watch her eyes, and I know she's thinking about something else, not what we're discussing. She seems far away, slipping farther as the seconds pass. "Who believes in you, Doc?"

She shakes her head and when she pulls her hand away from my face, I grab it with my own hand. Her eyes come back to mine, and I see tears there. "Nobody," she says, and it's the saddest word in the whole wide world.

The tears flow over the edges of her eyelids, tracing down her face quickly. "Your folks…?" I ask.

She shakes her head again. "My mother is just like me…an addict. My father says stuff like, 'Two for the price of one' when he refers to us. He's right, of course, I mean, look at me..."

"Hey, hey." I'd feel much more authoritative if I could sit up without the room spinning, but my words seem to be strong enough to hold her attention. "Don't do that. Look at you, you had a slip up, that's all. You've been holding steady now for a couple months, haven't you?"

"Forty-seven days," she says, tears still trickling down her face. I flip the blanket down and reach up with my other hand to wipe at her cheek. A smile tries to break through the tears, but in the end she can't do it.

"I can't imagine a gig that would drive me to drinking sooner, either, being stuck here with the three of us." She does laugh then, barely. "You're stronger than you know." She shakes her head, but then dips her face into my hand, like she's finding something strengthening there. Then her hand covers mine, holding my fingers to her soft skin. " _I_ believe in you, Sara," I say, and no truer words have ever left my mouth.

That sentiment just seems to make her cry harder, and before I know what I'm about, I've pulled her into my arms. She lies next to me on the bed, her arms folded in on her, but her head against my shoulder. It feels right; she comforted me when I was weak and here we are, just having a reciprocal moment. But I know it's more than that. I know that we can't go on much longer like this. She and Michael are going to have to leave, go to Panama ahead of me and LJ, or all hell is gonna break loose.


	8. Sara

I feel Lincoln fall to sleep. It takes a little while, but he finally relaxes and his arm loosens from around my shoulders. He's still holding me, just not as tight. I would love to lie here for the remainder of the night, which only consists of a few more hours, but I know I shouldn't. If we're found together like this, it would be bad. Michael would be really upset.

That in and of itself is enough to make me stay.

But I don't want to create friction between Lincoln and Michael, and the truth is I know they would choose each other over me any day of the week, because that's what they do. Lincoln's just being kind, and he's sick and exhausted and it wouldn't be right to take advantage of that and stay here for the rest of the night.

But it feels good. Better than just about anything has lately, including the night I filled my veins with a lethal substance. and that's the kicker, really, anyway, isn't it? I like being with Lincoln, because he makes me feel good. Being with him, being around him, it's just easy. We can talk about anything. He asks me hard questions, but with him they aren't hard to answer. With him, I'm completely honest for the first time in my life, and there's no worry for me, either that he's judging me or that he thinks anything other than what he says he thinks.

He's very refreshing after the other men I've had in my life, including his brother. Not that LIncoln's in my life per se, so much as just there by default. I put my hand against his chest to push myself up. I'll go back to my own bed, and maybe get a few hours sleep if I can turn my brain off. I'm surprised when his arm tightens and he shifts, turning into me. He's still very much asleep, but he isn't letting me go with any ease. In fact, the more I push against him, the tighter he holds me and then his other arm swings up and grabs my ass, pulling me right into him. He slides a leg between mine and tucks his face into the curve of my neck, so that my only choice is to rest my cheek against his. The move is so practiced and exact I realize this is his preferred sleeping method, when he has a sleep partner.

And I'd like to apply for the job, very much.

There's the problem. I’m not worried about causing strife between Michael and Lincoln as much as I'm surprised at the desire I have to be right here, in his arms, pressed against his body. That first flare of attraction that I felt in MIssouri has blossomed even as the feelings I had for Michael have died completely. Our confrontation was like a goodbye. It was like we broke up, even though we were never a couple anyway. That night, after Lincoln got home from his little rendezvous, I cried myself to sleep. I cried for MIchael, for myself, for the pain we had put each other through. And then right before I fell asleep, I realized I was also crying because Lincoln had gone out looking for something I wanted to give him.

I want to touch him and hold him. I want to kiss him and soothe him. I want to see Veronica fade out of his eyes, but never out of his heart, because I realize he cut his teeth on loving her, and it's made him what he is. What I really want is for him to love me. I want this, what I feel right here in the heat of his embrace, to be what I can count on. When he says he believes in me, I want to know that It will always be true, because I believe it with all my heart. He makes me feel like I can do what I had begun to do, live a clean life. He makes me think I can say _fuck you_ to my father and really, truly mean it, not just wish I meant it. He make me think I can believe in myself.

That's more than I've had in a really long time. Every day of my sobriety has been nothing more than proving to myself I could do it, only to think at the end of each of those days that maybe I never really had a problem to begin with. When I started working at Fox River, I found myself counting. Had I traded this inmate's life for the one I didn't save the day that boy died in the street because I was too high to fix him? It wasn't until I was in the hospital, looking at Michael Scofield's paper crane that I knew. The only life I could trade for the one that was lost was my own. I have to save myself before anything I do will matter. And maybe being a doctor isn't what I was meant for, not if it's too hard to do both: be Sara Tancredi, recovering addict and Dr. Tancredi, at your service.

Trepidation is a good word to describe the emotion that realization brought on. Being a doctor, that's everything to me, my identity is wrapped up in that, but to get well, really and truly, there may be things I need to let go of. Michael was one of those things, and the poison he brought out in me. It's not like I'm magically over it, but just knowing that I've said it out loud to him is such a relief.

Before I couldn't read him at all, but now that it's all over, I feel like I know exactly what he's thinking and feeling. Sorrow coats is countenance now, and he tries with every sentence he speaks to me to be polite and frank. He gives me a smile now and again that says sorry better than all the times he actually said the words, and I wonder if someday we might end up friends. But the odds of us staying together much longer is small. I know the police are looking for me, and that I'm considered a fugitive from justice. I know I'll have to go back and face what I did, because that's part of my recovery, too.

"Lincoln," I whisper, brushing my mouth tantalizingly over his skin. It's more tantalizing for myself, feeling the burst of his stubble against my lips, since he's dead to the whorl. "Let go, hon," I say, pulling back from him again. He murmurs in his throat, but doesn't obey my words. It's a testament to how good looking and sex this man is that he can smell like vomit and I still want to be this close to him. Finally though something registers and he loosens his grasp and I'm able to get out of his arms. I tuck the blankets around him and touch his forehead again. I think his fever has already broken, which means it's just a quick bug, but everyone in the house may acquire it.

Watching him sleep, I wonder yet again why I never noticed him Fox River. I mean, I'm not blind, he's good looking, but I never _noticed_ him. Or maybe I should say I had no awareness of him. He was much like he is now, non-threatening, just coming in occasionally for a bruise here or there. Unlike Michael, he wasn't trying to make me notice him. But he hasn't done anything outside of Fox River to draw more attention to himself, it's just that here, in the real world, he's not resigned to death, and his heart beats and his vitality is impossible to avoid. He lives, and because he lives, I feel like I will go on living myself.

 

 

The next morning, MIchael and LJ are up before both me and Lincoln, but when I get up I hand them a list of shopping items and tell them Lincoln's sick.

"I wondered where he went last night," LJ says, looking over the items on the list in Michael's hand.

"Go get that stuff and I'll make some chicken soup. Of course, we might all have the flu by sundown, too, so there's a few other things on there."

Michael's eyes examine the list for a long time. "He told you about the orange juice and 7-Up?" His gaze flickers up to mine and a smile plays on his lips.

"Yes." And before he can voice his discomfort about going to town and leaving us alone, I say, "We've got to stop worrying about things we can't control, anyway, Michael."

He compresses his lips into a grim line, but nods his head. LJ, thrilled to be getting out of the house for some reason other than to going to the beach, runs to put his shoes on. "We'll be back with two hours…if we're not…" Michael begins.

"I know our escape plans, if something goes wrong. We've been over it a hundred times. Go, Michael. It will be fine."

 

 

If I thought a midnight cuddle and the fact that he had called me by my name meant anything had changed in our relationship, I was sadly mistaken. However, I wasn't all that surprised when he reverted back to how it had been before that sweet moment. Feeling ill made him grumpy, to say the least, so when he gave out terse "Thanks, Doc," responses to all the hovering I did, I just tried to stay out of his way until he was feeling better.

A few days after that, I'm in the utility room, putting the bedding from the spare room into the wash. If only my mother could see me now, I'm a regular June Cleaver. The funny part is I like it; I like cooking and taking care of the house. I would never have dreamed something supposedly so mundane could give me such a feeling of accomplishment, but I find myself taking pride in our little home. I like seeing Lincoln, LJ, and Michael content at the kitchen table eating, and if I could I would muster some disgust at myself. I was a career woman, but now I'm all…housewifey. It's the weirdest thing in the world, but I know that it's making me happy, and I can hardly complain about that.

I can hear MIchael talking in the backyard through the laundry room window, shooing LIncoln all the features on these barbecue grill he picked up when he went to town to get the chicken soup ingredients. He also bought a large amount of hamburger so they could grill it. I'm smiling to myself as I hear Lincoln politely responding, but when Michael shows him the propane tank, he gets really interested.

"So, Mike, I've got an idea," I hear him say, just as I get the washing machine ready to go. If I turn it on, I won't be able to hear them, so I pause for just a moment.

"What's that?" Michael asks.

"Um…well, I think that, um, we should, you know, split up. Like--just hear me out--you and the Doc ought to go on ahead. You've got everything already to go down there, don't you? You two should go on, get it set up, and LJ and I can wrap things up here, and cover our trail and follow you in a few weeks."

My heart starts beating rapidly now. What the hell is he talking about?

"Everything is almost ready down there," MIchael says, "but no. We absolutely should not--"

"Michael, it's what you guys need. Some time, alone. It will, you know, get rid of the tension. And I could use some time alone, with just LJ, too…"

"Sara and I do not need to be alone."

"Yes, you do," Lincoln says, and the hard edge in his voice startles me. I press my hand to the wall, stringing to hear Michael as his voice drops.

"Nothing is ever going to happen between me and Sara."

"Oh, bullshit," LIncoln scoffs.

"Linc, I'm serious. We had it out about a week ago…it's not, we're not…" He takes a great big breath. "I'm not the guy for her."

I wish I could see Lincoln's face, because the length of time it takes him to respond is enormous. "I'm sorry, Mike."

"It was a blip. A moment out of time. It was never meant to be. Right? I mean, we had to meet her, and she had to help us. We had to help her. You've helped her a lot, don't you see that? She relates to you."

"Whatever," Lincoln replies, his voice rough. "If you want her, you should--"

"She doesn't want me, Linc. _She_ doesn't want _me_. And after all I've put her through, the least I can do is respect her wishes."

"We should still split up," Lincoln says again. I swear I can hear desperation tingeing the words.

Michael takes a long time to reply, but then he softly agrees.

 

 

LJ finds me in my room later in the day. "Hey, Doctor Sara," he says in a sing-song voice. "We're going surfing. You wanna come?"

I smile at him, because he's so adorable, and at the moment nothing could make me smile except him. I'm more than perturbed with his uncle and I'm ready to scratch his father's eyes out. "No, thanks. I'll stay home today." And try to get a hold of my anger before I start screaming obscenities.

"What's for dinner?" he asks, a common question he likes to throw at me with a wink.

"Hamburgers, remember? They wanted to barbecue."

"Oh, yeah," he says and there's a hint of disappointment on his face. "Will you make potato salad, or that pasta salad you made last week? That was good. I don't want just their crappy hamburgers."

I laugh because I can't help myself. "I'll see if I have everything to make either of those."

"Thanks, Doctor Sara!" He disappears from the doorway, and the good feeling he brought with him lingers another 30 seconds or so. Then I'm back to wanting to kill someone.

I decide to go lay out in the backyard, because even if I'm not going with all of them to the beach, the sun might improve my mood. Gather my 12-step book and my notepad, I head outside in my bathing suit, which is a two-piece top and short set. I look around as I get outside. Since I'm alone, maybe I'll sunbathe nude, but who knows how long those guys will be gone? It's not until I reach up to until the neck of my top that I hear some clanging and look behind me. Lincoln is still messing with the barbecue about 15 feet away, and has his back to me.

"What are you still doing here?" I demand.

Startled, he jerks around and then straightens from his crouched position. "I thought you were going to the beach," he says.

"I thought _you_ were going surfing. LJ said you were going."

"Him and Michael. I didn't feel like it. I thought…" he trails off and turns back to face the barbecue.

If I wanted an opportunity, I couldn't have asked for a better one. I feel the anger I've spent the last hour trying to tamp down rage up anew and I ask him, "So, you and Michael think you get to make all the decisions around here, huh?"

He picks up a towel near the barbecue and wipes his hands on it as he turns to me with a puzzled expression. "Come again?"

"You think you get to tell me what to do and that I'll just go along with Michael to Panama, alone, without you? That's I'll just wag my tail and do as I'm told like a good little puppy?"

His eyebrows go up, and he looks completely baffled. "What are you talking about?"

"I heard you, earlier, Lincoln. I heard you tell Michael we should go on to Panama without you."

"It was just as suggestion."

"I heard him agree with you!" I shout.

"Well, if you listened to the whole shittin' conversation, then you know why I wanted you to go, and that's not the situation anymore, not that I knew that or anything!"

"I'm not going anywhere without you."

"Even if we did split up, it wouldn't be for longer than a few weeks, anyway."

"I'm not going anywhere with Michael," I say, and even I can hear the screeching in my voice.

He looks at me with undisguised alarm. "Nothing's been decided."

"You aren't listening to me," I say, throwing my towel and books down on the grass. "You don't get to ship me off. If I go anywhere, I'll go back to the States and face what I've got to face there."

He takes three long steps towards me and I see his hands ball up into fists. "You aren't going back to the States, that's for damn sure."

"I'll do whatever I want!" I'm so angry, I suddenly feel detached, like I'm watching our fight instead of participating in it. My next words surprise us both. "I can't do this by myself right now; I can't believe you'd even consider sending me away when I need you so much."

He pauses, and his mouth just hangs open for a moment. Only a short distance separates us now, and I wonder what in the world possessed me to confess that. That's all he needs, to feel like he has to be my sponsor. But he's filled that role, and the anger I felt only covered the clawing fear that without his strength, I might crumble to nothingness.

I turn around, intending to run away, both from what I said, and from what I feel, but his hand wraps around my wrist and he pulls me back to face him. "You don't know what you're asking me to do," he says roughly and then his other hand plants itself in my hair, gripping the back of my neck hard. His arms wrap around me and he slams my body full length into his. He actually pauses a moment--I don't know if he thinks I'll say no, or push him away or what--but I'm right where I've wanted to be and I wouldn't stop it even if I could.

When his lips open over mine, there's nothing gentle or tentative about it. The way his tongue enters my mouth tells me that he's thought about this many times, and it's all worked out in his mind. He tastes like the Hershey bar I saw him grab after lunch and beyond that is only the flavor of Lincoln. Sex, sweat, and twisted sheets flash through my mind as I wrap my arms around his waist, pushing myself more firmly against his lean body. He's wearing a pair of board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt that has never been buttoned up, so there's a lot of skin touching skin and it feels wonderful.

He mouth eats mine, his tongue both playful and dominant. when he tires of that, the hand around my neck merely pulls my head back and his lips slide down my throat, while his tongue flicks and his teeth nip. Before I can even attempt to move my hands into any sort of answering caress, his tongue is under the edge of the material covering my left breast, and then almost my entire breast is in his mouth, not just my nipple. He presses the aroused peak right to the roof of his mouth and works it hard with his tongue until I'm gasping and moaning his name in an attempt to keep my wits about me. He sucks with a deep-seated hunger and that makes me wonder if either of us has ever been filled. I never knew it could be so powerful so fast and I just want to slide to the ground and melt under him.

My hands fight with the shirt until I find the waistband of his shorts and my fingers dip into the back of them. His ass is firm, and I slide my hands around his buttocks before gripping them tightly to pull him into me. We can't get any closer, not with the clothes we're wearing between us, but we keep trying anyway. His other hand imitates mine, roaming over my ass, but his hand is big enough that it nearly covers both cheeks and he hoists me up a little so that his erection slips right in the space between my legs. A stream of swear words falls out of his mouth as he moves his lips away from my breast, panting, "Sara, stop this, stop this right now, please…oh, God, why do you feel even better than I--" He buries his face in my shoulder, holding me even more tightly while his body shudders and shakes.

I do what he asks, not because I want to, but because I recognize that as much as we both want it, it can't be done like this. It can't be something that we just fall into, even though I've been falling for quite sometime. I can't force this into being right. And I can't cause Lincoln the pain of knowing he did something behind Michael's back. I move my hands from inside his shorts to his shoulder and I press him back just slightly. His heart races like a freight train and though he lets a little space get between us, he still holds me close. He kisses the skin right behind my ear, a sweet, soft caress that is very much in contrast with everything else he's done in the last few minutes. The crotch of my swimsuit is wet and I can't help imagining the next possible thing he could do. I'd give anything to feel his hand slide down into the front of my shorts and his fingers curl up into me. "Let me go, Lincoln," I say softly, knowing the longer he holds me, the more tempted I'll be to invite further intimacies.

He does as I say, his arms dropping away, but his fingers wrap around my forearms. He clears his throat, and starts to speak, but instead, tugs the cup of my swimsuit top back into place over my breast. I glance up at his face, thinking maybe I'll see embarrassment, but that's not it at all. He doesn't want to stop, and that's as plain as anything I've ever seen. His hands move to cradle my face and presses his lips firmly to mine without opening his mouth. "See?" he finally says, as if picking up the other conversation all over again.

We stand together, like that, with my face tilted up to his, him holding me near, but not too close. "This is why you want to me to leave?" I ask.

"Yeah. But I don't want you to leave and get into trouble, or hurt yourself. I didn't even think about that, I swear. I thought you'd want to get things worked out with Michael…"

I put a finger against his lips. "Lincoln, no. _This_ is what I want. But I’m not….trying to…"

"I know," he says quickly. "I mean, I didn't know…to this extent anyway." He shakes his head and then steps back from me, taking his hands away from my face. I wrap my arms around my breasts, feeling very exposed. He shoves both hands through his hair and sighs heavily. "It's just…attraction. I mean, it's just us having stuff in common, and you needing…and me being…"

"Don't try to explain it. It doesn't suit you. And I know what it is, thanks very much." I turn around and pick up my book and notepad.

"Doc, don't be mad…" I glance back at him, and he stops. "Sara," he amends. "Don't be mad."

"You thought you wouldn't notice I was a woman if you called me by my title, is that it?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know what I thought. I didn't think _this_ , that's for damn sure."

"It's nothing, Lincoln. Don't worry about it." I move away, intending to turn and go back in the house, but I'm surprised when his features contort with a little bit of anger.

"So that was nothing, huh?" he asks, his finger doing a little dance in the space where we just stood clenched together. "If that was nothing, no wonder you were able to give Michael the heave-ho."

"Fuck you," I spit.

"Oh, no, I think we just covered that there won't be any fucking, that's for certain and for sure."


	9. Michael

When I lived in my loft in Chicago, I would open the veranda door and listen to the river. It soothed me in my most frenetic moments, when my mind would be in overdrive and the only way I could still it was to focus on the sound of the water. Many times, the next piece of the plan to help Lincoln escape would click into place, after hours of pacing in the apartment had done nothing to help.

Water is a balm.

I took up surfing so Lincoln and I had something to do together, and so that when we open our dive shot in Panama (he keeps calling it a surf shop, and it will have surfing items in it, but it will primarily be a dive shop), I'll have some expertise in what I'm selling to my customers. But the way the water soothes me, I had forgotten about that, until today. As I paddle out against the waves, hoping to hit the next one I see coming, ideas and plans start to solidify in my head.

Lincoln and Sara. Sara and Lincoln. Maybe neither of them even sees it, though I doubt Linc, having been forced into celibacy for three years, is blind to her beauty, or her assets. To tell the truth, I'm surprised he never said anything to me on the inside, you know, one of those crude guy-to-guy remarks like _what a fine piece of tail that would be_. On the inside though, he wasn't thinking about stuff like that. He was too worried about dying, or about escaping. He wasn't in the Infirmary every day flirting with her and having wayward thoughts like I was.

When our mother died, I had just turned 12. Lincoln was almost 16, and in his sophomore year of high school, but with a few weeks of her death, he quit school to go to work full time. He made up an aunt we didn't have somehow convinced social workers we were fine, and they never split us up because of it. One time, I remember he got one of our neighbors in the projects to pose as our aunt when the social worker came by. He kept us together, even if sometimes we went a little hungry or it was little cold in apartment because we never turned the heater on. We had a rule: if the temperature dipped below 20 degrees, we could turn the heater on for an hour right before we went to bed, but that was it. We owned a lot of sweatshirts, and a lot of blankets, but somehow we made it through. When Lincoln turned 18, he was able to get a better job. That's when he started working construction, but, of course, he also started dealing and that improved our situation considerably.

But when I turned 18, he told the biggest lie of his life and gave me $90,000 to go to school and get me started on a good life. And I was too stupid, for once in my life, not to see that for what it really was. So when my brother sat on death row, and I knew it was my fault, what else could I do? I had to get him out. And nothing that got in the way had any value in comparison. Even Sara.

Her value post-escape has been immeasurable. She's taken care of us. We've had something we hadn't had since we were kids--a mother. She's babied us, and cooked for us, and done everything she can to make the house we live in a home. She's done it all out of the kindness of her heart, and as a way to matter. I watch her, and I see that it brings her peace and comfort to do it, and I know we've helped her in some inexpressible way.

But it's Lincoln, his incongruous, gentle, bear-like demeanor, and the questions he asks her that has helped her face the hard things from her past. I recognized she is getting better spiritually in a way that has nothing to do with me. I would like to have been that, her savior. I would have liked to have been the one where she found the answers she was looking for. But I'm not, and if I want to claim any sort of affection for her, or even cross the line into thinking that I love her, I have to be willing to do for her what I did for Lincoln. Sacrifice what I want for what is best for them.

Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe they won't find in each other what I see could be. Maybe they'll just scratch an itch and that will be the end of it. It would make me want to beat the living daylights out of Lincoln if that's the case, but they're adults and they have to figure it out for themselves.

Lincoln's idea of splitting up, at first was like the devil incarnate to me. I had a flashback of Sucre in the hold, not wanting to drill into the face of Satan for fear of what it would do to his immortal soul, and I realized I have to stop. We can't stay together if anything’s going to get solved. Lincoln recognized that, but he was thinking about it from my end of things. He won't think about it from his end of things, so I'm doing it for him. Splitting up is the right thing to do, but it's LJ and i that need to go to Panama, and it's Sara and Lincoln who need to stay behind. And they need to know that whatever happens, whatever they need, I'll be okay with. Hopefully, by the time they come to Panama, I will be okay with it.

I wave to LJ, who is several yards to my right. I point to the beach, and motion for him to follow me. I think this is going to be the hard sell, to get this kid to leave his father. Of course, I'm not going to tell Linc or Sara. If I'd told Lincoln half the things I'd planned before I did them, he would never have let me do them, and this is no different.

We get back up on to the beach, and stick our boards into the sand so they stand up and provide a little shade. Then we sit for a few moments, I tell LJ, so we can catch our breaths before we walk back to the house.

"LJ, I need you to help me with something," I say, drawing his eyes to mine.

"Sure thing, Uncle Mike. What's up?"

"Your dad and I were talking about maybe splitting up for a while."

"I know, he mentioned it to me a few days ago."

"What do you think about it?"

"Well, it's gonna suck to be apart, and I'll miss you guys, but I understand."

"What do you understand?"

LJ pauses, and I can see him debating how much to reveal about what he and his father have discussed. "You know," he says shyly. "That you and the Doc need to…work shit out."

I gaze out toward the ocean and steel myself for the words floating out into the universe for the first time. "What if I told you that what you dad thinks is right, except that it's about him, and not about me?"

I look back at LJ and just stares at me, his eyes intent. "Um, well…I don't know."

"Your dad needs some time alone with Sara to work out what's between _them_. That's what I'm saying."

"No, I get what you're saying, I just…I mean, Dad's, you know, still messed up over Veronica."

"I agree, but sometimes the best way to get over an old love is to find a new one."

LJ's eyes widen. "You think they love each other?"

"Not yet."

"You think they might love each other?"

"If given the chance, yes."

He's silent for some time, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "So you want us, me and you, to go to Panama, and leave them here, huh?"

I nod.

It's a battle, for different reasons. I see LJ's love for his father and his desperate need to be with him more often than not war with his affection for Sara. The truth is he'd probably really like Sara to be in his life permanently.

Who the hell wouldn't?

"Okay," he says, nodding his own head. Bravely, he adds, "If you think it's the right thing."


	10. LJ

I want to tell Uncle Mike no. No, we aren't leaving my dad behind. No, I can't be away from him. But Uncle Mike isn't one of those guys who asks for a lot. He's the kind who gives a lot. He's always been there, my whole life, and even some years when Dad was messed up and missed my birthday or some other important thing, Uncle Mike didn't. I can't remember not getting a present from him, ever, and he was at every Christmas program and Soccer Awards dinner and all that stuff. Most of the time he was with my dad, but sometimes, it was just him.

It sorta puts you in a weird position, you know, that you can't say no to the guy who has obviously done so much for you. And loves you, and loves your dad so much that he did what he did. I mean, come on, breaking out of prison? That's amazing. We're all here, and alive, because of Uncle Mike. And now he wants to help Dad out some more. He's willing to give him Sara, which is just plain weird. I guess maybe I don't understand what's going on, because I thought like Dad, that Uncle Mike and Sara just had a fight or something.

When we get back to the house, though, I suddenly have a clue. Something is really wrong because Sara's in the kitchen viciously chopping up ingredients for the potato salad I requested. Dad's out in the backyard, fiddling with the barbecue, but when I try to talk to him, he's short with me. I go back to the kitchen and ask, "Is there anything you want me to do?"

"LJ, right now, what I need you to do is leave me alone, okay?" She says it as nicely as she can, but considering I haven't done anything to deserve either of their anger, I just look at Uncle Mike, who shrugs and shakes his head.

“Come help me with the hamburgers," Michael says and so I hurry over there, where at least someone is still acting normally.

It gets worse when we sit down to dinner an hour later. The tension between Dad and Sara is so thick that it's hard to breathe. Sara doesn't look at him or speak to him the entire meal, and then completely ignores him when he asks for items to be passed to him. The table isn't that big, so it's easy enough for me or Uncle Mike to pass whatever he wants, but pointedly, at least twice, he asks her directly and she appears to not hear him at all.

Uncle Mike nudges me with his knee under the table and when I look at him, he's grinning. I start laughing, and it just bursts out of me, startling dad and Sara. I all but fall out of my chair, and Uncle Mike starts laughing, too. He leans his head on my shoulder until tears are rolling down our faces.

"What the fuck's so funny?" Dad demands, and I see him look at Sara, who still won't acknowledge him, but she is watching us with mild curiosity.

Uncle Mike gets a grip on himself before I do and chokes out, "Just something that happened at the beach earlier."

"What was that?" Sara asks.

"You had to be there," I say, glancing at Uncle Mike again and we just dissolve into more peals of laughter.

"Well, shut the hell up," Dad say grumpily, looking back at his dinner plate.

 

That night, I'm watching TV in the living room and I hear Sara in the kitchen. The dishes have been cleaned up and put away, so I don't think much of it until I hear my dad go in there, too.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

There's no response.

"Oh, give me a break, Sara. How long are you going to give me the silent treatment?"

A little longer, it looks like.

"This is fuckin' ridiculous. I didn't do anything bad enough to deserve being treated like this."

I get up from the sofa and edge down the hall a bit, wondering if there's anyway I can get Uncle Mike out of his room to hear what's going on.

"Sara!" It's the sharpness in Dad's voice that makes me realize he's calling her by her name now, not 'Doc.'

"I'm scrubbing the kitchen floor so I don't sit in my room and imagine ways to string you up."

"How am I the bad guy?" he demands. "We know we can't do what we were about to do. We know that's just asking for trouble."

"You're an idiot, you know that?" she snaps back. "I'm not mad at you because of _that!_ I'm mad at you for accusing me of giving Michael, what did you call it, the heave-ho? Michael and I were never anything, except Doctor and Patient."

"Right, so you left the door to Infirmary open because he's your favorite _patient_."

"You're such an ass, Lincoln! God, how could I have ever thought you were this sweet, understanding guy?" I can almost see her shaking her head, but then I hear the sound of a scrub brush against the kitchen tiles.

"You told that you had feelings for him. _You_ told me that!"

"Feelings doesn't make us anything! It certainly didn't make us lovers. And nothing like what happened today ever happened between Michael and I!"

"You never kissed him?"

Sara snorts. "That wasn't kissing!" Now, I'm glad Uncle Mike can't hear them. He might be nice enough to give up the girl for his brother, but I doubt he wants a blow by blow on this stuff. Dad's cursing under his breath, like he's got his hands pushed up against his face. Then he mumbles something and she says "What?" real snotty like.

"I said," he retorts in an equally biting tone, "that women are enough to make a man want to blow his brains out."

"Well, by all means, don't let me stop you."

There is a pause, and I wonder if Dad's counting to 10 real slow or something, because he doesn't leave the kitchen, but he doesn't say anything for a long time either. Then quietly, it comes out. "You want me to say I'm jealous? Okay, I'm jealous."

"Are you?"

"Yes. And it's stupid, because nothing's coming of this."

"It's just attraction," she says, but there's something in the way she says it, like she's mocking him.

"Fuck me, Sara, fuck my brother, it's all the same,."

"If it was just fucking for me, maybe that would be true."

He groans, "Oh, don't do this to me."

"You want me to start lying now? You're the one asking me a bunch of questions that are none of your business, but then I tell you everything and what am I supposed to do? Pretend that I'd just tell all that to whoever would listen? It wasn't what I was saying, it was who I was saying it too. It was you, Lincoln." She sighs, a shaky little sound.

"No, no," I hear him move towards the kitchen doorway, so I duck back into the living room. "I don't want you to lie, but I don't know if I can…no, I _know_ that I can't. That's what I know. I can't. We can't."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Just tell me the truth. Don't try to deflect with stupid defense mechanisms. If you're jealous of Michael, it's your own fault. There's nothing to be jealous of."


	11. Lincoln

So for years, the military has tried to come up with torture techniques. Oh, we all know they do it, so just deal with it. They try to find the ultimate way of reducing a man to nothing, so he'll be more inclined to tell them whatever they need to know.

Supposedly this will give them the upper hand in battle, right?

So if you want to torture a straight man, here's the secret: Just let him know that every night, he sleeps in a room right next to a beautiful woman who wants him and would give him all the pleasure he can stand. Oh, and he can't have her. Yeah, that's right, that's the torture part. She's there, she's willing, she's like live wire in your arms, juicing all the parts of your body you want to feel fired up, but you can't have her. You can't fucking have her. Ever. For lots of reasons. Too many reasons to list, but the biggest one: yeah, your brother, he loves her.

Oh, and one more thing, you just got out of prison, and the only sex you've had in almost three and a half years is with a little Mexican woman who was good at what she did, but didn't stir you up enough even for a second round.

T-O-R-T-U-R-E.

So I lay in the bed, next to LJ, who sleeps like he's on Unisom, and I crave her. I crave what is just on the other side of the wall. I crave it so much that I can't sleep, so I get up in the middle of the night and take a shower, hoping that will relax me, or at least I'll be able to relax myself, if you get my meaning. But all the water does i make me imagine her hands touching me, which makes it worse, which makes me hornier than I was to begin with. So I turn the tap to the coldest temperature setting it has and force myself to count to 30. That helps for a while.

Now that she's not mad at me anymore, she's just driving me crazy. She's always there, just in my peripheral vision, always doing something, always asking me if I want this or need that and I want to stand up and shout: _YOU, HERE, on the kitchen table._ Right now, that's all I need.

So I go for a run, or I go surfing, and Michael follows me and wants to know what's wrong, and three times, _three times_ , I've almost told him. But then I can't bring myself to do it, so I just remind him that we need to plan our split up, and I think to myself _screw Sara if she's pissed at me about shipping her off_ , as she called it. I don't care. He needs to take her and get the hell out, the sooner the better.

Yesterday would not have been soon enough.

But then I work through the frustration part, and I remember her sad face and her words of needing me and I know I should stop badgering Michael about leaving. I shouldn't feel relief when he says he's almost got it worked out. When they leave, she'll look at me with those eyes and I'll know I failed her. Just like Veronica.

Sara's strong enough; she doesn't need me. Just like Veronica didn't need me. Of course, Vee was always smart enough to _know_ she didn't need me. She just wanted me and she was willing to put up with a whole lot of garbage because of what she wanted. Veronica Donovan sat through shit storm after shit storm, held me up in ridiculous circumstances, and gave her life for me. There's really no reason to dwell on it any longer. That's why, even if Sara weren't the object of my brother's affection, I wouldn't start anything with her. She'll get strong enough, even if she thinks she's not yet, and Michael will take care of her. He may think all is lost between them, but time and lack of other opportunities is bound to work in his favor. If I'm not around, she'll have to rely on him. The strength she thinks she's gotten from me, she'll be forced to seek it out in Michael. And it's there, I know. I've relied on MIchael's strength for a long time, but never more than I have since I saw him in the chapel at Fox River and he presented his little plan to me.

Sara just doesn't know she's pegged the wrong brother. The attraction is like to like, and that's one of the program step violations right there--two addicts should never try to help each other out. We'll just drag each other down. Even though I know the only thing I want to drown in is her. 

I get up this morning, later than usual since I was up half the night with the unquenchable fire. I stumble out into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. Sara is sitting at the table, looking at a folded piece of paper. I pause and look over at her, because she's staring at the sheet of paper like it's a bomb she's got to dismantle.

"What's up?" I ask, scrubbing a hand over my face. A yawn fights its way out of my mouth.

She looks up at me, and her expression is somewhere between sorrow and fear. It flashes quickly across her face, a look of desperation followed by an instinctive recoil, as though I'm about to do something violent to her. She picks up a second folded piece of paper and holds it out towards me. "This is from Michael, for you."

I look around then, and I sense the rather empty-feeling in the house. LJ and Michael must already be out surfing and it's not even 10am yet. "They go surfing?" I ask, making my way around the counter to the table.

"Not exactly," she says, her eyes steady on my face as I take the paper from her.

"You send them shopping?"

"No."

"What's the deal?" I'm too tired and strung out to play guessing games with her.

"They left."

She says it just that way, in her clipped little I'm-barely-answering-you way that I've found to be the least appealing characteristic she displays.

"Well, where'd they go?"

I open the folded sheet of paper. At the top is _Dear Lincoln,_ and the rest of the lines are filled with Michael's blocky printing. "They went to Panama," Sara says and my legs go out from under me.

 

I sit in the backyard, looking at what's left of the barbecue. Yeah, I know it's retarded, but I totally tore it apart. I kicked the shit out of it and then I flung the parts all around the yard until they were bouncing off the wood fence and vaulting back towards me.

Sara, wisely, stays in the house.

When I see Michael again, I'm going to rip his heart out. Of course, I won't be seeing him until he decides it, because he's left us no information on how to find him, or his damn surf shop in Panama. And he took my son with him, it appears, _willingly_. I'll kick LJ's ass too, the little punk. Although, in hindsight I know LJ said goodbye to me last night, getting a little maudlin in the dark as we were supposed to be falling asleep. He apologized for having ever doubted me and promised me that he would never let me down again. I, not understanding what it was all about, merely hugged him and chalked it up to hormonal adolescence, but also promised I wouldn't let him down ever again either.

Michael's letter is both fuel for my fire for Sara and anger towards him. I can't believe he turned my idea around on me. I can't believe I finally had an idea that was so damn smart, and he still managed to make it stupid. He says he'll contact us within three weeks, and give us the best route to getting to them. He says I shouldn't worry about getting rid of everything in the house until I hear from him. He says, if I feel an inclination towards Sara, I have his blessing.

An inclination? That's such a Michael word. Not, _Hey, Linc, if you want to screw my woman, have at it._ Not, _Don't worry, man, I won't be pissed._ No, instead he says if I have the inclination, I should act on it, it would be good for both of us. He also says don't let Veronica hold me back. Like he even knows. He doesn't know. He doesn't understand what it's like to have your dreams restored for a heartbeat only to have them jerked out from under you again.

I hear the faucet come on and I glance back at the house. Sara is standing, looking out the kitchen window at me. She doesn't wear any expression, and then I hear the water go off and she disappears from view.

Or, maybe he does understand.

It's hard to be the brother of a martyr. That's what Michael is, a fucking sacrificial lamb. Willing to give up so much for those he loves, even if it kills him. And it must, that's why he left. He left us here, and now I've got to deal with what I've been dealing with alone. With no obstacles. With no reason not to do it. Michael gave me his blessing. _His blessing._ It makes me want to fucking kill him.

I go back in the house and find her watching television, and that just incites me further. "What did he say to you?"

She doesn't look up from the screen. "Nothing, they were already gone when I got up."

"In your letter, Doc. What did he say in the letter?"

"None of your business."

"So, is this going to be a battle of wits or some shit like that?"

Her eyes move to my face. "You aren't the only one not happy about this situation, jackass."

"Oh, really? You made it clear to me that you didn't want to go with him when he left, so it looks like you've got every reason to be happy."

She grabs the remote and turns the TV off. Getting to her feet, she says, right in my face, "If you think my idea of happiness is being trapped in a house with someone who'd rather be halfway around the world from me, then you don't know me very well. Michael's just like my father, making all these decisions for me, never allowing me to figure things out for myself. No wonder the only thing I've ever been good at is the stuff I snuck off to do."

Moving around me, she storms down the hall towards her bedroom. There's a thousand things I want to say in response to that; most of those original thoughts include telling her that all the things she's good at are all the things that get me hard, but I know that would just stir us both up to something we don't need.

Only, I do need it. I need it so fucking bad, I'm curling my fingers into fists to keep from reaching for her. Right on the heels of that, I want to tell her that it's not true, she's good at all the things I've ever seen her do from tending to LJ when he landed on the reef one day during a surfing session, to being able to whip up anything in the kitchen she sets her mind to, to making me laugh about the medical inconsistencies in ER reruns.

She's so good at what she does, she drives men away and pulls them closer with every move she makes. Michael stole my idea. Michael took the one thing I had to keep this all together. Michael took my last valid reason for avoiding what's right in front of me.

 _I wouldn't rather be halfway around the world from you, Sara._ I think it through two full times, repeating the words to myself, and just as she gets to the end of the hall, I say it out loud.

She pauses, then looks back at me, her hand against the wood paneling of her bedroom door. She seems frozen in time, torn between what was and what is, and I know that if I walk down the hall, I'm about to start something that I'm not ready for. But the part that is ready is the part that's doing my thinking for me right now.


	12. Sara

All the tender places on my body throb feverishly at his words. We stare at each other across the expanse of the hallway, which is only about 10 feet, and I'm possessed by the wild urge to run away. As it is, I turn from him, from the burning heat of his gaze and walk right into the closed door of my bedroom. Then I feel like an idiot, so I just stand there, looking at the wood stupidly. It's barely 11am and all I can think is _I haven't brushed my teeth yet_.

He doesn't make any sound, but I feel the heat of his body behind me and I stiffen as his hands slide around my waist, pulling me back against him. His lips touch my ear, his voice a low rumble, "If you don't want this, just say so." It's quite obvious he wants it badly.

I want this so much, I'm speechless. I've been rendered mute by the need to feel his hands on me and his lips across my skin, and his heat expanding inside me. I want him more than I've ever wanted anything, but all I can utter is his name in a very shaky voice. "L-Lincoln," I gasp, throwing my head back against his shoulder. That's when I realize he's already removed his shirt. "Oh, God," I moan, and I hope that's enough because I don't think anything more coherent will escape my lips.

His hands smooth up from my waist, slipping under my shirt. His palms are huge, spanning my torso completely. When his fingers find the under curves of my breasts, he hisses, "No bra, thank God," against my cheek and I gasp his name again as my breasts are swallowed up by his caresses. He cups and squeezes them gently and then his palms flatten, running the calloused, fleshy pads lightly across my nipples so that I arch back into him sharply.

"Sara, Sara, Sara," he chants, and I feel like he's making up for all the time he wouldn't say my name.

I reach down to unfasten my cargo pants, letting them fall to the ground. Dragging one of his hands down, I force it into the elastic of my underwear. When his big, rough fingers slip between my legs, I cry out with need and relief, because some needs too long denied are finally being met, but more erupt right behind them. "Please, Lincoln, please," I beg. I hear him release a litany of swear words as he feels the extent of my arousal.

For whatever reason, he never turns me to face him. His knuckles brush over my labia as he quickly reaches to yank the underwear completely out of the way and they fall around my ankles. Then his fingers are there and they cover me completely, his middle finger curving up and sliding right inside me. Groaning with the pleasure of it, I turn my head and our mouths find each other. Our tongues meet in frenzied recognition and his finger mimics lovemaking to the point that I'm hardly even prepared as I explode into his palm.

He erection is like iron against my ass and as soon as he feels my orgasm subside, his other hand is yanking with little finesse at the front of his pants. Then I feel the smooth heat of his cock slide against my skin and he whispers, "Like this, just like this." His arm around my waist pulls me up and into him. He crouches a bit to get his legs between mine, but then his hand is holding me open as he thrusts up into me from behind.

I brace my hands on the wall and our lips break apart as we touch as deeply as possible for the first time. I grind back into him and my head drops to lean on the wall as he rams into me. He cries my name loudly, the pleasure so intense nothing we do from here on out could be quiet or restrained. One of his hands clenches on my hip, holding me steady for him and the other lands on the wall next to mine, our fingers brushing. The closer we get, the harder he moves into me, the more I cry out and my hand finds his, gripping hard as I feel another climax zinging its way through my body.

"Yes, oh, this is just how I knew it…" Mindless words tumble out of his mouth, falling into my hair. He heaves against me one more time, and then he stiffens in a paroxysm of convulsions, and with very little movement he holds himself deep inside me, coming, long and hard. The hand on my hip slides forward and brushes over my clitoris, giving me the last caress I need to follow him heedlessly into sexual abandon.

When next I feel a thought trying to work its way into my head, he's gently extricating himself and spinning me around, or maybe it's just my world spinning. But then his mouth devours mine and his hand opens the door that was giving me trouble not very long ago. We stumble through it, fall onto the bed, and in less time than should be medically possible, he's hard again and shoving himself inside me. Once our lower bodies are reconnected, he drags my shirt off over my head and touches my breasts with fervor, his fingers abrasive and teasing until I'm arching up into him and well on my way to satisfaction again.

His mouth skates over all the exposed skin he can get to, and his hands find mine, drawing my arms up so that they are over my and his chest is rubbing against mine with each thrust. Then our eyes meet, and the noisy insanity of it all seems to still. I can't look away from him, from the intensity that sparks out of his expression. We don't kiss, but our eyes are fucking as surely as our bodies are and when I come again, I squeeze my fingers around his so hard that I feel pain.

Then I pass out. That's the only explanation, because my next awareness is him lying beside me, totally and utterly asleep, and I'm so fuzzy and confused that I don't think I'd know what had happened except that it was so intense I can't deny it. And because there's nothing else to do, I simply turn my face into his neck and close my eyes. Sleep claims me, too, but I never lose the knowledge that Lincoln Burrows lies next to me, heavy and sated.

 

 

It's fairly late in the afternoon when I wake again. He's also awake and lying next to me with a very satisfied expression, but he doesn't speak. Instead, when my eyes open, he starts caressing me, with just his fingertips. They follow the lines of my body and when I try to touch him in return he simply shakes his head and pushes my hands out of the way. Then his mouth opens against my breast and he kisses me from there down to my stomach until my hands grip his hair. When he spreads my legs and kisses me between them, I'm so far gone I can only pant in rhythm with his tongue and he brings me to new heights of ecstasy for such a long time that I'm sobbing by the time I finally climax. "That's my specialty," he whispers against my shoulder as he tries to tuck me into his body, but I don't let him. It seems like the longer it goes on, the less likely he is to let me touch or caress him and I'm not okay with that at all.

"You just lie back," I say, pushing against his shoulders. Then I reciprocate every kiss and every flick of his tongue by roaming over his body in the exact same manner that he had over mine. When I get to his cock, it's hard and throbbing and I suck on the end until he's the one panting to the rhythm I've created. Just as he's about to come I deep throat him twice, a quick wonderful caress that has him completely open and vulnerable to me. I move my mouth away and let him come against me, and he still doesn't speak, but worlds aren't necessary for me to know that he's thoroughly at my mercy.

We finally get up and shower, ending up in the bathroom floor in the aftermath. Then he says, "Food, gotta have food…" and we get dressed (well, he puts on some shorts and I put on his t-shirt) and go into the kitchen. Looking at the clock, I see that it's almost seven in the evening. And our first day without Michael is totally a success.

We look the cupboard to see what's available. Ultimately, we have bowls of cereal because neither of us wants to cook anything. When we're back at the kitchen table, where it seems this whole thing started this morning, I look at him, really look at him, until he says, "What?" around a mouthful of Cheerios.

I shrug and smile. "Nothing, just…" I trail my hand over his bare shoulder in a caress that is just the freedom of touching him, and it's pure delight because it's just that simple. Just my skin against his skin. "Just," I finally say and he leans over to kiss my mouth, sweetly.

As he moves back from me, he says enthusiastically, "Fanfuckingtastic, that's what it is. I don't know how I knew…but I knew it would be like fireworks on the Fourth of July with you, and I was right. Man, I'm ruined. I'll never have it this good ever again."

I drop my eyes to my bowl of cereal, feeling a little apprehension at the fact the he could even imagine some future love who he would compare to me, but I know it's much too soon to be asking for some sort of commitment. At this point, we're just working out our aggression, though I can't immune feeling anymore certain that I do at this moment that I cannot have a future without him in it.

"Yeah, it was pretty…" Mind blowing, life altering, amazing, terrifying, something I hope I don't regret if this goes bad. "Wonderful," I say aloud.

"Wanna do it again?" he asks, and he looks at the kitchen table with a gleam in his eye.

I follow his gaze and shake my head. "On the table? We eat here. No."

"It's washable, Sara, besides, if you knew how often I thought about you, on this table…"

"On the table?" I ask incredulously.

"Well, we spend a lot of time here…you cooking all the time. It was just a natural course for my mind to go on."

"Whatever, Pervert."

"Wanting you naked on the kitchen table doesn't make me a pervert," he says confidently, picking up his empty cereal bowl and mine. Getting up, he sets them on the counter and then turns back to me, grabbing my hand and drawing me to my feet. When our bodies meet, he whispers lasciviously in my ear, "Besides, if you didn't want to get it at the kitchen table, you should have come out here wearing only my shirt." His hands are already under the shirt and cupping my ass quite appreciatively.

"If you're not a pervert, you're at least insatiable. How can you even be ready to go again?" I ask. I know how old he is, and it blows my mind that we've already done it as many times as we have.

"Three years, babycakes, three years! I've got time to make up, and the perfect woman to do it with."

When his lips capture mine again and I feel the swell of emotion fill my heart, and my loins, I wonder if there could be anything further from the truth.

 

 

“What are you thinking about?" I ask hours later as we lie in his bed now, since my bed has been demolished.

"Hmmmm," he says, his face snuggling into my neck as we lie spooning, "I was thinking about how mad I was at Michael this morning and how _not_ mad I am at him now."

"Well, how could you conjure up any energy to be mad at him now, anyway?"

"Good point," he says, a chuckle hitting my skin softly. Then, "What are you thinking about?"

Funnily enough, I too was thinking about his brother. "I'm thinking that he's not selfish at all, and I'm sorry I ever thought that. I don't know that I could have done what he did."

"You mean, just walk away?"

"Yeah. I mean, I was fine with nothing ever happening like this, but that didn't mean I was just going to leave."

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"I mean, I would have stayed with you until I didn't want to stay anymore, whether it was good for us or not. I don't think I could have been reasonable enough to face that the smart thing would be to let you go."

"Well, you don't have to make that decision," he says, but there's a slight tension in his body now. "And I know what you mean. I tried to make the right choice, I've tried doing that all my life. But I usually make the wrong one."

I wait a heartbeat and then ask, "Do you think this is a wrong choice?"

He sighs and I want to turn over so I can see his face, but I force myself to lie still. "Not wrong…not in the sense that we shouldn't have done it. But obviously it complicates things. I won't be able to go back, now, that's for sure. We can never just be friends again."

"I agree."

"But…Sara, I don't know--"

Now I do turn over and press my fingers to his lips. "You don't have to know anything. I'm not asking for anything."

"That's bullshit and you know it. We asked for everything with the way we went at each other. I mean, I know it's been awhile for me, but…that sex, that was extraordinary. You know, I'm not some punk kid who doesn't know the difference between--"

Now I press all four fingers to his mouth to stop his monologue. "I'm not stupid, either, Lincoln. I know this is special, but I also know that we're in special circumstances; we don't have to decide anything right now."

He eyes are lambent, bluer than they normally are. He searches my face, I suppose for the hidden meaning in my words, but I’m serious, and he can tell I mean it. I hope with all my heart that giving him freedom is what will hold him to me, but all I can do is be honest. And I honestly know he doesn't love me, and that while this is serious, it's also very transitory. He finally just says, "All right," and then pulls me closer, tucking his leg between mine and dipping his head down to get it against my neck.

"I think it's cute how you like to cuddle, " I say, trying to alleviate the tension our conversation provoked.

"Yeah, well, don't tell anyone. It's my big secret."

"You want to know my big secret?" His response is a tightening of his arms around me. "I like having sex on the kitchen table."

He laughs and mutters, "Pervert," against my collarbone.


	13. Michael // LJ // Lincoln

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the story takes a shift and we won't hear from Michael and LJ again for several chapters.

We’ve been rattling along on this bus I’m not sure is structurally sound for a few hours before LJ asks, “How pissed do you think Dad was when he got up this morning?”

 

I look at my nephew and deadpan, “It can’t be measured with existing technology.”

 

The grin that splits LJ’s face would only further tick Lincoln off. “Yeah, that’s what I figured,” he says, laughing. “You’re pretty smart, Uncle Mike. I mean, Dad always said you were a genius, and I guess I never really knew what that meant. But you’re smart about all kinds of things. Most people are only smart about one thing, and everything else, they screw up.”

 

Yeah, well. If I were smart, I would have known that Sara made a better fit with my brother, and I wouldn’t have let myself fall in love with her. But I know what LJ’s saying, and in part, he’s right. “Thanks, LJ.”

 

“It’s gonna take centuries to get there if all the buses are like this. I feel like we’re on borrowed wheels as it is.”

 

I try stretching out my legs a little, but the bus was built with much shorter people in mind. “Yeah, well we should get into the city in a few hours, and we’ll sleep there tonight. We won’t go into El Salvador until tomorrow. I tried to break up the bus rides, so our asses don’t hate us forever.”

 

With a rueful grin, LJ replies, “My ass thanks you.”

  
  


 

That night, I’m in the shower, second-guessing myself. Usually, I come up with a plan, and after I work out all the kinks, I hardly ever consider another way. I might plan another way, but that’s just for back up. I like to stick with the original plan, that’s what comforts me.

 

My second-guessing isn’t on Lincoln or Sara’s behalf. I know what happened the minute they accepted we were gone. It’s been brewing for weeks, but these last few days, it’s gotten worse. The afternoon we came back from the beach and Sara was so obviously mad at Lincoln helped me make up my mind. No woman I’ve ever known gets so mad that she acts like you’re not even there unless she cares a great deal. No woman I’ve ever known has come up with a better manipulative tool. Men can’t take the silence. We think we hate the words, but at least if you’re talking to us,  _ we _ can ignore  _ you _ . At the very least we can do the passive-aggressive,  _ sure, I’ll do that _ and then we just stay sitting on our asses. If we’re ignored, there’s nothing left for us. We’re screwed and we know it.

 

I second-guess my ability to really do this. To let them be whatever they’re going to be. Because, I won’t be happy with either extreme: they hook up, fall madly in love and spend the rest of their lives together; or, they hook up for awhile, and then go their separate ways. The first I don’t know that I can look at for the rest of my life, willingly. The second is totally unacceptable, because then how will I know if Sara is all right? It’s the battle between these two options that exhausts me.

 

What’s worse, a world where Sara is part of my family, just not the way I originally envisioned her, or not a part of my life at all? Right now, I don’t know, but neither seems appealing. On top of that, I absolutely know there was nothing else I could do. I had to leave them; I had to tell them it was all right. I couldn’t stand seeing the way Lincoln watches her anymore. His eyes have a predatory gleam tempered only by the sad, desperate need to be touched again. And I don’t mean his body, I mean his heart. He needs to feel something again that doesn’t begin and end in Veronica’s empty space.

  
  


He’ll be mad because he’ll think that this is a grander sacrifice than I should make, but the truth is I can never pay him back for all he’s done for me. My happiness is tied to his, and I know that. I know that better than I know how deeply it could have gone for me with Sara. Maybe she could have been the love of my life; maybe she could have been the mother of my children. Maybe I could have stopped the cycle of broken families living in small parts. Maybe I did it anyway, just not how I expected to do it.

 

/ /

 

When I was a little kid, my dad never hit me. If he got mad at me about something, he was more inclined to have me stand with my nose against the wall. I get it now that his strength scared him and he didn’t want to hurt me physically. Ironically, for a long time he didn’t seem to care about hurting me emotionally, or maybe he just didn’t get that it hurt me. That’s probably it, because I know the strength of my dad’s love. I know how much he wants us to be all right with each other.

 

We never talked about Veronica, but there were nights in the dark of our shared bedroom when my heart was bursting with the pain of it–his pain, my own. Acutely aware at times, I could almost feel the pulsing of it through him like his blood. I miss Veronica, but she was still a separate part from me. Not like my mother; I still have dreams where I see her bloodied and dead on the kitchen floor, but I always try to block those images with happy times from my childhood. Christmases, birthdays, everyday things I never knew were as great until they were gone. There’s an ache and a hole in my chest for my mom, and Dad understands that because he lost his mom when he was about my age. We talked about that, but never about Veronica.

 

I don’t know all the details, but I know Dad always felt like he lost a good thing when they broke up. And he must have thought he would get a second chance if he ever made it out of prison. But that didn’t happen, and there’s a hole in him too because of it. So the idea that Uncle Mike threw on me about Dad and the Doc, that just seems like plain craziness.

 

But he’s right, and I heard and saw enough in those last few days before we left them to know that. I could see it between them, the way I saw it between my mom and step-dad. The only good thing is I love Doctor Sara, so it would be cool if she were going to be dad’s girlfriend.

 

But I know about Veronica, and I just don’t see how it can work out. I don’t know how Dad could go from being as broken up as he is to being set up with the Doc. I sure as hell don’t think three weeks is long enough, but Uncle Mike says that’s the longest he’s willing for us to be apart. He wants us all together for our safety, and he’s right. I know I’ll feel a lot better when we’re back together, and we’ve only been away from them since early this morning.

 

/ /

 

On the third night of sleeping wrapped up in Sara, I wake up with my heart pounding and sweat dripping off me. I get myself out of her embrace and sit on the edge of the bed, trying to catch my breath. She leans against my back and whispers, “It’s all right, you’re all right,” softly in my ear. But I can’t get control of my breathing, and it seems like the harder I try the less I can, and I’m starting to feel panicky.

 

I feel her get up from the bed, and run from the room. When she returns, she has a small paper bag from one of the trips to the grocery store, and she folds the edges down before she holds the bag over my nose and mouth. She places one of my hands on the bag, showing me how to hold it and then she says, “Breathe, here,” and she pulls my other hand against her left breast so that I can feel her chest moving up and down. “Close your eyes,” she commands. As soon as I block out the bedside lamp and the other objects hitting my eyes and just feel her breathing, my lungs relax.

 

Her hand covers mine against her chest and she silently waits for me to calm down. When I finally start to breathe normally again, I open my eyes, seeking her gaze for reassurance. She sits down next to me on the bed, wrapping both hands around mine to remove it from her chest. I watch her over the edge of the brown paper bag.

 

“Feel better?” she asks softly.

 

I lower the bag from my face and nod slowly.

 

“What was the dream about?”

 

I shake my head and let the paper bag fall to the floor. My hand is trembling, but it’s only a symptom. Everything inside me tremors. She pulls me down on the bed, lodging my head against her chest, her fingers softly filtering through my hair.

 

I haven’t dreamed since Fox River, or at least I haven’t remembered any of my dreams. And if they were anything like this one, I’d like very much to go back to not remembering. She strokes me gently, not saying anything. It’s gotta be close to morning, but it’s still dark outside and there’s a surreal quality to our bedroom. I have vertigo, and everything feels far away from us, like the bed is centered in a very large room. But she’s there, and she’s soft and her hands touch my hair, my neck, down my shoulders.

 

“I heard her get murdered, but I’ve never dreamed about it before. I could see it, not just hear it. But I was still helpless, I still couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t get to her.” The words tumble out against her bare skin, and I realize we’re both naked. It’s become commonplace in such a short amount of time, like we’ve always been this comfortable with each other. But it’s the comfort that makes me uneasy. Did I dream about Veronica because this is all so wrong? Because being here like this with Sara is stupid and selfish and exactly what I shouldn’t be doing?

 

“You heard her get murdered?” Sara asks, and I realize she never knew how we knew Veronica was gone, she just accepted that we knew it. I tell her briefly, how the first phone call I made in my world of freedom was to her, to Vee, to the one person I couldn’t wait to get my hands on again, but the length of our conversation was shorter and more horrifying than anything I could have ever anticipated. “Oh, Lincoln,” she breathes heavily into the top of my head, her lips caressing my hair. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her arms tightening around my shoulders.

 

My face is pressed to the top of her chest, above her softly firm breasts, and I feel the shudder of pity work its way through her lungs. I feel tears burn the backs of my eyes and I know I’m about to lose it. I don’t want to go through this again, I’ve had waves of grief on and off for almost two months. It had finally seemed to stop, but now here I am again, and I can’t help but wonder if Sara is the reason for it.

 

Or at least my guilt for enjoying her so much, and for feeling happy for a moment. For three days we’ve been drunk on each other, rarely moving from touching each other except to eat. We haven’t left the house, we’ve had sex in every way I can imagine, in every place we can have it, and I haven’t thought about anything else but pleasing her and pleasing myself.

 

I pull away from her, and sit on the edge of the bed again. “Sara…” I can’t look at her while I say it. I can’t see the pain that will come into her eyes. “I think I need to be alone for awhile.” She’s silent behind me, and so I turn my head, just so I can see her in my peripheral vision. “Just for awhile,” I say. She crosses her arms over her nakedness, and I don’t let myself look at her face. I plant my elbows on my knees and drop my head into my hands. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I can feel the wetness of tears starting down my cheeks.

 

I feel her get off the bed again, and she still doesn’t say anything. We’ve been in my room since the first night, so for her to go back to her room, alone, seems like the cruelest thing I can ask of her, but I can’t do anything else. At this moment, I feel like if I cry for Veronica in her arms, it can never stop. Crying for Veronica and being with Sara intimately can’t be had in the same moment, not now, not with the way things have changed.

 

At the door she stops, I hear the squeak of hinges as she pulls the door closed after her. “Lincoln,” she says quietly. “I know Veronica loved you,” and with that my chest heaves, and I can’t disguise what is happening to me anymore. “And anyone who loves you would want you to…be cared for. She wouldn’t be upset about this, I just can’t imagine that she would.”

 

“I just need to be alone for awhile,” I say again, my throat so clogged, I wonder if she can make out the words.

  
Softly she says, “All right.” And then the door closes and I don’t move for a long time.


	14. Sara

After I shower and dress, I go into the kitchen. Preparing food has somehow become the new heroin. It’s in style, right? I mean, how many cooking shows are there? I’m just in with what’s popular, and I’ve cooked so much over the last two months, I should have my own damn cooking show. It’s not even 6:30am yet, but there’s no way I can sleep after being so unceremoniously dumped.

 

I don’t want to be mad, and I’m not. I don’t want to be hurt, but I am. I want to understand, and I do. I want to be in that room, with him, but I’m not. And it kills me. His loneliness kills me; his emptiness kills me. His sweetness, his hot-bloodedness, his lovemaking, his laughter, his everything…God, I’m so crazy about him, even I recognize the gag factor. If I had girlfriends to gush to, they’d be like  _ Shut the fuck up, Sara. We get it, you like him _ .

 

But I don’t have anyone to say anything too. I only have him, and right now he doesn’t want to need me. And maybe he doesn’t need me, at least not in the sense that I’d like him to need me. He has more than proven the ways he does need me over the last few days, and if bodily contact counted for anything, I’d say we’d last forever.

 

But it’s always like this at first, you can’t get enough of each other, and it slowly dies down. It either flickers out or at least remains steady at a manageable level. I just didn’t think it would flicker out so quickly, not with as hot as we’ve been burning.

 

When I woke up and realized he was in the throes of a nightmare, it scared me. He was terrified, panicked and trying desperately to get off the bed. I knew the instant he finally awoke, because he stopped struggling and reached for the lamp quite normally, except that his rapid breathing indicated he was close to hyperventilating.

 

His revelation about Veronica’s death drove a proverbial dagger into my heart. How in the world can one man, or one family, when I think of what Michael and LJ have been through with him, endure what they’ve been asked to endure? How many people will die at the hands of these faceless foes? I think back to the night they came into my hospital room and how I wanted to tell them to get the hell out. But I didn’t, because of Lincoln’s face; because of the grief I saw there. I saw traces in Michael, and later in LJ, but neither of them were where Lincoln is. And it seems that it’s not getting easier for Lincoln, though how could it in only two months’ time? That would be asking for a miracle, and I don’t think those are handed out very plentiful to these men.

 

The only good thing is I don’t feel any jealousy over Veronica. For some reason, it makes me think I’d understand what Michael did, how he left us here. If Veronica were still here, I could give Lincoln up to her without a fight, because that’s what would make him happy. Of course, it’s easy to think so highly of myself when I won’t be required to do that at all. I mean, I may be required to give up Lincoln, but it won’t be to an adversarial body. It may be the memory of a woman instead, and that’s far harder to fight. There’s not much I can do except be here. That’s where I’ve got her beat, and that’s my only advantage.

 

I make food that works well as leftovers, because I don’t think he’ll come out of his room for a while. Then I start a grocery list, because we’ll run out of a few items by the end of the week. By the middle of the day, I’ve lain out in the sun, gone over my 12 steps and there still hasn’t been a peep out of him. I’ve done all the laundry I can do, and remade all the beds, including my own. I think about knocking on his bedroom door, but am filled with such a foolish, schoolgirl crush feeling of shame that I force myself to walk right past his room and go into my own. I’m feeling rather tired, because I’ve been up since dawn and didn’t exactly go to sleep last night all that early due to Lincoln’s rather perky libido.

 

I lay down to take a nap on the freshly laundered bedclothes, and am out before I can even worry one more iota about him.

  
  
  


It’s his mouth on my neck that wakes me. Then I feel his arm around my waist, and the heat of him all along my back. I feel his lips curve into a grin and he says, his voice whispery light, “Sara…Sara…” Then his tongue snakes out, streaking across my skin and I feel myself grinning in response, even though I’d rather not let him distract me with sex when I think he’s got a lot of things he needs to work out. “Are you awake yet?” he asks, but I keep my eyes closed. “Do you forgive me for being a jackass again? Do I have enough redeeming qualities,” he fake coughs the word ‘orgasm’ against my skin, “to keep you talking to me?”

 

I start laughing because he’s funny, but also because I don’t want him to think everything hinges on him being perfect. I know that I love him how he is, and how he is is totally fucked up. Which is what I’ve always been attracted to, and probably will be until the end of time. But I have to come back with a response that’s enough of a joke that he can understand both the levity I can use to get us through these situations, but also the fact that I want more. I’ll always want more, and I’ll keep trying for more until he’s able to give it to me. “If I was just interested in orgasms, I could get myself a gigolo.” I turn my head so our faces are close together, forcing him to remove his lips from my neck.

 

“There are no guarantees in life. I doubt you could pay someone who’s as good as me.”

 

“I think you’re a little overly confident.”

 

“If I’m overly confident, why are your nipples hard?” he asks as his fingers reach to tweak the hardened peak of one breast through my tank top.

 

“I was having this dream…”

 

“About?”

 

“Um, that movie star, what’s his name? You know, the one we watched in the movie on TV last night. X-men. Wolverine. That guy. He’s hot.”

 

“Shut up. Look at his hair. It’s ridiculous.”

 

I laugh throatily. “I didn’t notice his hair…he’s got too many other…attributes that uh, you know, get a girl’s imagination–“

 

He makes a growling sound and throws his leg over mine, forcing me from my side on to my back and then he climbs on top of me. I’m squealing and attempting to buck him off, but if anything’s as ridiculous as Wolverine’s hair, it’s trying to throw this 185 pound man off me. When his lips claim mine, the heat and aggression that’s always there is tempered slightly by an apologetic flick of his tongue against my upper lip and then the smooth dipping of it into my mouth just long enough to invite me to play. When I pursue him willingly, he groans and sucks on my tongue. I part my legs to give him a cradle between them and he flares to full potency against me. Wrenching his mouth from mine, he pants, “I actually came in here to ask you on a date, but now you’ve got me all worked up…I’ve got to prove that any dream about some crazy-haired mutant isn’t going to compare with the real thing.”

 

I shove my hands into the back of his shorts and repeat, “Ask me on a date?” but it doesn’t stop him from lifting up long enough to let me get the material off of him.

 

He yanks my shorts and panties down too, and glances back up at my face. “Yeah, I thought we could go into the city. You know, not just fuck all day and all night.” He leans down and kisses my belly as he disposes of the clothing from my bottom half and then his hands catch the edge of my tank top to drag that off as he makes the move back upward.

 

“But first…” I say, pausing to bite my lip as he gets his cock into position.

 

“But first, I gotta have you,” he says raggedly as he enters me.

 

We both sigh with pleasure as the connection is made and I feel rather aflutter with the combination of his words and his actions. His hands reach for mine, pulling my arms up over my head. I’ve noticed this is one of his favorite things to do if I’m on the bottom. Lacing our fingers, he uses the leverage to arch my back and bring his pubic bone down in just the right spot. “Lincoln,” I breathe, feeling the quickening spread through my abdomen.

 

“Let me hear you, baby,” he says, his lips roaming around my ear and cheekbone.

 

“This is the real thing,” I blurt out, bringing it back to what he said just a moment before.

 

His head moves back, our eyes meeting briefly. Right before he drops his mouth to mine, he whispers, “I know.”

  
  
  
  


As I run a brush through my mussed hair, I ask, “How are we getting to town? It’ll be a bit of hike, huh? I better wear good shoes.”

 

Lincoln’s head appears in the bathroom doorway. “We’ll take the car. Why would we walk?”

 

I look at him incredulously as he disappears down the hall again. “I thought Michael took the car?”

 

“He did,” he shouts back. “But he paid some guy to bring it back here. It’s outside, I checked the first day they were gone.”

 

Shaking my head at myself in the mirror, I realize Michael’s planning fetish covers all things that you could ever think you might need to plan.

 

“You ready?” Lincoln asks, appearing again in the doorway.

 

“Almost,” I say, pulling my hair up into a clip.

 

“Here’s your baseball cap and your sunglasses,” he says, handing me what we’re wearing to obstruct the view of our faces.

 

About a half hour later, we hit the city limits and Lincoln drives as if he knows exactly where we’re going. “So what’s the big plan for this date?” I ask him.

 

“There’s this restaurant, Michael told me about the day he bought the barbeque. Supposedly it’s authentic American food.”

 

“Oh, come on, we should eat like we’re tourists.”

 

“No, I want a steak. And this is a date, I gotta take you to a nice place.”

 

“Just because you buy me dinner doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with you, you know,” I say, grinning at him across the expanse of the front seat.

 

“No, you’ll just have sex with me. No sleeping involved.”

 

His smugness would be irritating if it weren’t true, so I just laugh and agree with him.

 

After we get our steaks, which actually hit the spot because they are perfectly cooked, the sun is setting, so Lincoln takes my hand and says, “Walk with me.” And we do, we walk through the shops and booths near the restaurant, and then we find a lane that leads up to a beautiful garden park, so we stroll along, in companionable silence. It’s after sunset now, so our sunglasses have been hooked over the front of our shirts, but we keep our baseball caps firmly in place.

 

Lincoln’s fingers flex around mine and he asks, “What do you think about your father being the VP?”

 

Startled, I just stare at him for a moment, and then I realize what he means. “That he got the job because he didn’t grant you clemency? Oh, yeah.” I point to a bench and we sit down, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. “He told me the day of the escape that he never even looked at the proof I took him regarding your case. That was part of the reason I left the door open, because it galled me that he could so blatantly not care about wielding his power. He could have saved your life, but it wasn’t even important enough for him to read something about it? I mean, even if it didn’t change his mind? Okay, that’s one thing, but to not even read it? I was appalled. I’m still appalled. But I’m sure he’s appalled to be who he is now and have no idea where his daughter is. A fugitive from justice.”

 

“If he knew you were with us, that would just be the icing on the cake.”

 

“Of course. I’m sure he hopes I’m never found.”

 

“Oh, Sara...” he shakes his head as if no father could ever think that.

 

“He didn’t come to see me in the hospital, Lincoln. He didn’t even come to see me when I almost died.”

 

“You were only in the hospital a day and half before we came to get you.”

 

“If LJ was in the hospital, for any reason, how long would it take you to get there?” He drops my gaze, and his left hand strokes the back of my hand he’s holding with his right. “See? There’s no chance he cares if I’m dead or alive, he just hopes I don’t cause him anymore embarrassment.”

 

He looks back up into my eyes, sighing heavily. He’s sorry for me, and it’s darling because how can he be? I know his father was an abusive drunk who abandoned him, and here I sit complaining about the privileged life of a politician’s daughter. “This one time, when I was still in college, he was just the Mayor of Madison then, and I showed up totally high at this fundraiser he was hosting. He was so mad he had all of my things removed from his house. He had an apartment picked out and paid for, and some political aide of his picked me up from class the week after the fundraiser and took me to my new home. That was the first time he knew I had a drug problem, but instead of helping me, he just shipped me off, just like my mother.” Now it’s like I can’t quit talking about it so I raise his hand to my lips, pressing his fingers over my mouth. “Make me shut up, this is not what we should be talking about on our first date.”

 

He turns his hat around so the bill is over the back of his neck and leans over to press his lips gently to mine. It’s a sweet, soft kiss and when he pulls back he says, “What should we talk about on our first date? Oh, I know, how about I tell you that my father is responsible for this whole fuckin’ mess.” My eyes grow large as he expounds upon the mystery that is his father, and the little bit of information he gleaned the day he almost escaped Fox River the first time.

 

“Why did you let him go?” I ask, knowing I would have wrapped my arms around the guy’s neck and dragged him with me out into the open.

 

“I have no idea. I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t,” he repeats it like maybe he’ll get some sort of revelation from the mantra.

 

I touch his cheek with my fingers. “It’s the same reason I kept thinking my dad would show up at the hospital. Somewhere inside us, we love them, even though they don’t deserve it.”

 

“I don’t love my dad, I don’t even know him,” Lincoln says without flinching. “He left my mother when she was eight months pregnant with Michael. I’ve seen him for an hour in the last 32 years, and whatever that 4-year-old boy felt died a long time ago.”

 

“Then why did you let him go?” I ask again, searching his eyes.

 

He shrugs and pulls his face from my touch. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t love. The only people in the world I love are Michael and LJ. That’s it. It’s easy to keep track when it’s such a short list.”

 

I see his defensiveness building, and I figure if he’s going to get mad, now would be the time to piss him off, in public, in a place where he can’t retreat from me. “You love Veronica,” I say mildly.

 

“Loved.”

 

“ _ Love _ .” I dip my head to catch his eyes, even though he’s trying to avoid my gaze. “Just because a person dies doesn’t mean the love stops, Lincoln. I’d wager you still love your mother too.”

 

He determinedly looks away, and even pulls his hand free of mine on the pretense of turning his body into a more face-forward position on the bench. “Well, of course,” he says, looking out at the flowerbeds. He turns his hat around so the bill shades his face again. “I love my mother, of course.”

 

“And you love Veronica.” I press his shoulder with one finger. “You still love Veronica, and you always will.” And I’m not stupid enough to think he didn’t just purposely indicate that he doesn’t love me. “It makes sense to me that you probably won’t ever get—“

 

“Sara, I don’t want to talk about this. If I had wanted to talk about it, I wouldn’t have asked to be left alone.” He jerks his chin towards me, as if he might look at me, but then he gets agitatedly to his feet.

 

“You need to talk about it,” I say gently.

 

“I know you’re a doctor, but you’re not a psychologist.”

 

I get up and move to stand near him. “No, but I’m your friend. And I’m asking you about this as your friend.”

 

“Right,” he mutters. “You’re asking me about the other woman now that you’re  _ the _ woman.”

 

“No, I’m not,” and it’s honestly true.

 

“Sure you are. I mean, how long will you go on sleeping with a guy who’s still in love with a dead woman?”

 

“Oh, Lincoln. Shut up. I’m not stupid, you know.” He still won’t look at me, so I tug on his arm ineffectually. “I’ll sleep with you until I get tired of it. And I  _ am _ your friend, even if I’m your lover. Not everything I do has an ulterior motive.”

 

“I can’t, okay? I just can’t talk about it. Not yet, anyway. Maybe…” he shakes his head. “I can’t.”

 

He finally lets me turn him so we’re face to face. I slide my arms around his waist and wait until he looks me in the eye. “All right,” I say softly. “But if you ever want to, I’m here. I want to listen.”

 

He wraps his arms around me, hugging me close. His mouth is pressed against my shoulder when I hear him say, muffled, “Thank you.” I hug him tightly in return, my heart aching for him. I’d give anything to make it better, but all I can do is offer a temporary escape. “Let’s go home,” he says quietly.

  
  
  
  


We’re parking the car just outside the house when he asks, “You did it, all of it, to get your father to pay attention, didn’t you?”

 

“Did what?” I ask as we climb from the car.

 

He circles around it and grabs my wrist so I don’t walk into the house. “Started using. Left the Infirmary door open, ran away with us. It’s all about your father.”

 

“Who’s playing psychologist now?” I ask, reaching up to take his baseball cap off.

 

“Hey, you admitted you love the S.O.B., so I’m making some logical conclusions here.”

 

“I didn’t start using, as a 15 year old, with an agenda. I see now what I was doing, trying desperately to get him to love me. But after awhile, it wasn’t about him anymore, it was just about me and my addiction. As for the Infirmary door, lots of reasons, but he was close to the top. And as for running away with you…I only did that for one reason. I couldn’t look at your face and say no,” as I say that I cup his cheeks in my hands. “That’s the truth, Lincoln. When I saw what was in your heart, right there on your face, the devastation…I couldn’t say no. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

 

“Why do women always want to talk about their feelings, and in turn force men to do it too?”

 

“If you held everything inside you, all the time, you’d blow up. Women know that. I’m trying to help you.”

 

He leans down and touches his lips to mine just barely. “I know you are, and that’s why I can’t be mad about it. You seem to do everything with concern. Even the cooking, I could feel it in the food.”

 

I smile because I hadn’t thought of it like that, but he’s right. I hook my arm around his neck and tug him towards the house. “Let’s go to bed,” I say, knowing that it won’t take much to inspire him in that way.

  
When we get in the house, Lincoln goes to check the cell phone Michael left. He checks it everyday to see if there’s been a change to the plan, but everyday it’s blank, and I know Michael won’t contact us until he’s got everything ready in Panama. I take off my cap and toss it and Lincoln’s onto the kitchen table and then I follow him into the living room. He’s got the phone clutched in his hand as he turns the TV on. In rapid Spanish, I hear a reporter excitedly relating something, and when Lincoln says, “Holy shit,” I look around him to see what it is. His arm reaches out for me as tears cloud my vision. I don’t understand a lick of Spanish, but the screen shows clearly that in some sort of freak accident, both the President and the Vice President were killed when Air Force One crashed outside of Dallas, Texas.


	15. Lincoln

When I finally find CNN, and can hear the whole story in English, or rather the not-yet-pieced-together story, of how the President and the Vice-President of the United States managed to be killed in the same tragic event, I get Sara to a sitting position on the sofa. The newscaster doesn’t know much, although she goes on and on about how protocol has been broken, and never in the history of Air Force One have both the President and the Vice President traveled together. The reasons for this breach of protocol is being investigated, as well as the equipment malfunction that had led to the plane crashing 20 miles from the Dallas-Ft. Worth International airport.

The confirmed dead include the crew of the plane, a group of reporters, the President, a great deal of her personal staff, and the Vice President, who appeared to have boarded the plane at the last minute in Washington D.C. earlier in the day. With my arm around Sara, my eyes are drawn back to the cell phone, now sitting on the floor at my feet and the text message that appeared there from Michael. All it says is, “Watch news.” So wherever he is now, he is already aware of this event.

And it happened seven hours ago.

Sara quietly cries as she listens to the reporter, but nothing they say is going to solve the riddle, at least not right now, and I recognize that. Gently, I say, “We should turn it off, wait until later, when they might have more news.”

“No!” she cries, her fingers twisting into the material of my shirt. “No, leave it on, please. Leave it on.”

She shakes against me, but then reaches to remove the remote from my hand, holding it tightly in her own. I attempt to pull her back on the sofa so we are resting against it, but she holds herself rigidly, so I just keep my hand on her waist. I watch with her for an unbelievably long time, and they just keep repeating the same information again and again. Experts come on with speculation as to why the two leaders of the U.S. would do such a thing, but no one knows why and it’s ludicrous to speculate, but Sara hangs on every word. Occasionally she says, “Maybe, maybe, that’s why,” and I’d like to shake her and ask her what difference it makes. It doesn’t make any. He’s dead and he’s not coming back and that’s the bottom line.

But my way of dealing with grief and her way is so obviously different, that all I can do is sit and feel helpless and long to talk to Michael. Does he think it has anything to do with us? Or is it just some fluke? My gut tells me, like everything from the beginning, what Michael could never see or anticipate, that Sara’s life has been interwoven with ours in the strangest way. And our mutual grief has only just begun.

Eventually, she relaxes back against me, and before I notice that she’s fallen asleep, I feel myself drifting away, only to jerk myself back. I reach for the remote and turn the TV off, and she doesn’t protest. Her face is against my chest, and her cheeks are tracked with salt, and I have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

 

 

  
We wake up sometime in the night because of the discomfort of the sofa. We’re half sitting up, half reclining, and when one of us tries to move it wakes the other. I’m aware first and she looks around sleepily, as though trying to figure out why we’re here on the couch. Then her eyes meet mine and I ease her into a more upright position. “You all right?” I ask. She nods, then shakes her head, the confusion evident. “When you go to sleep you forget, but when you wake up, it’s right there waiting for you,” I say.

Her eyes darken and then shine as tears fill them again and she nods. “Is that what it is everyday?” she asks.

“At first. I think it took two years, after my mom died, before I didn’t have go through the memory phase every damn day. But I still do it, now, with...” and I can’t say Veronica’s name out loud, though I’m sure I must have, at some point, during the last two months? Hadn’t I? Or had I removed her from my vocabulary, hoping it would speed the process of waking up every day into a world without her?

She rubs a hand over her face and sighs. “You’d think, after everything, it couldn’t hurt this much. But it does. It just hurts so much. And I don’t understand, it makes no sense.”

“It never makes sense. You can have the doctor explain it to you, inoperable cancer. You can have your mother break it down for your little brother in the simplest of terms: Mom’s sick, and they can’t fix it, so she’s going to go to heaven sooner than she thought she would. But at the end, it makes no sense, and you’re left with nothing but the hole they leave behind.”

“I’ve been living with the hole for a long time,” she says softly, wiping at tears that escape from the corner of her eyes. “But now...now there’s no chance of it ever being fixed.”

I watch her as she runs her fingers over her cheeks, sighing heavily. Maybe that’s it about Vee, that part, what she just said. In fact, I know that it is, like she read the inside of my eyelids every time I close them. It’s not just that Vee’s gone, or how she died, it’s that I thought I would have a chance to set it right, and I never did. Of all the things that Michael’s plan let me hope, that was my outlying thought, the one I spent the least amount of time with because all the other thoughts crowded their way further up. Escape death, rescue LJ, have a chance at life as I see it now, since the perspective I gained on Death Row helped me see that I had been doing it all wrong for such a long time, etc, etc. All the things I had failed to be for Michael for such a long time, I was going to give it back to him and be there, and be what he needed in a brother again.

And when all of that was accomplished, maybe I’d be the guy with Veronica, the one that brought her coffee in the morning and called her on her lunch break and made love to her late at night. We’d do the things we had talked about, make a family with LJ and our own kids and everything would be, finally, the way it should have been always.

Pipe dreams. They were pipe dreams when I was 28, and we tried to make a go of it again, and they’re pipe dreams at 36, when I’m staring down the line of my life and seeing nothing in it of value except for LJ. And his value will be reduced to living under an alias in Panama for the rest of his life, never having a real life, maybe never finding that feeling he talked about with the girl from the neighborhood he might have loved. He’ll live my life all over again, without the things that make it worth it. And what about Michael? Sacrificing everything, above and beyond, letting me have everything that he wants so that we can pretend that maybe dreams do come true?

I look at Sara, and I know I can never tell her any of this. This is what she wants me to pour out to her? She wants to hear the truth I’ve seen in the death of Veronica. The truth is what it’s always been. I can never have anything good without it being tainted, either by my own doing or by life’s circumstances. Blame my father, blame the fall of the cards, blame whatever you want, but in the end it’s all the same. Lost opportunities, missed chances. The only pleasure we’ll ever find is in the stolen moments that we’ve had the last few days, and even those are tainted. Tainted by a brother who should have had more, who should have had everything, but has been reduced to gallantly stepping aside. To no end. To no fucking end. Because Sara will wake up one day and know she could have had more, or she’ll realize that all along she should have gone with Michael, and it will be too late. And her life will also be reduced to nothing more than lost opportunities and missed chances.

We’re still sitting close together, and I have no idea what she’s thinking as all the bottom-basement thoughts filter through my head. When she turns her face into my chest, I’m startled again by the feeling I have when her arms wrap around me, sure and strong. From the beginning, her touch has electrified me, my heart, my body, my mind. I’ve done more thinking in her presence because of the surprise her touch always makes me feel. I struggle to make sense of it, even now, because it’s more than attraction, and it’s different than the feelings I ever had toward Veronica, and she is, I can admit at least to myself, the only woman I ever loved.

I sit here knowing the last thing Sara needs in her life is me, and that the only thing that will keep me together is her.

Her face snuggles into my neck and I feel the dampness of her tears against my skin. She whispers, “All I know is that I’ll never be able to tell him how he hurt me, or how wrong he was. I can’t help but think this is his payment. It played out in the only way it could. Maybe that’s my vengeance talking, I don’t know. I wish it could be different.”

I hold her tight against me, because that’s what we both want. She wants to be close to me, and I can’t push her away. She wants to grieve for a man who treated her like trash, but she cries because she doesn’t feel grief, she only feels vindication. My heart bleeds for all the people I’ve wronged, Michael, LJ, Vee. God, Michael. The cold hard truth has finally revealed itself: I can never set these things right.

 

 

A week later, Michael text messages to start clearing out the house. We remove everything we brought with us, and wipe down everything else. We remove the evidence that we were ever here, and I take a trunkful of things we can't take with us to pawn shops in the city. We begin packing, and spend the majority of our days cleaning the house top to bottom, making sure nothing we have touched remains marked by fingerprints or residue of any kind.

We get everything reduced to the point that we only go in my bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen, even leaving the television alone because there's no new news out of the States. It's been called an act of terrorism, it's been called an assassination, but they still don't know for sure what caused the Vice President to get on the plane, nor what caused it to crash. They keep examining the information in the black box onboard the plane, but it will take weeks, and they don't expect to have any final answers for quite sometime.

The shift in my mood has affected our relationship. Sara and I still sleep together, and we even have sex periodically, but more than anything we are just companions, there for each other in the dark of night. She's woken me up crying, and I've held her until her weeping changes to the need to forget and then we fuck until we fall asleep again. She gives as generously as she ever has, but I don't know that I really feel anything beyond the momentary pleasure of release and the soothing feeling of being in her arms as I drift away. We talk more and less, more about what it will be like in Panama, and less about what it all means, both our relationship and the cause of her father's death. She seems to adopt my attitude of not knowing and therefore not being able to solve it, so she has pushed it aside for the time being.

In our cleaning of the various rooms, we stumble across a deck of cards, and we do that to pass the time too, Gin Rummy to Poker, though we always play for clothes, so that's another reason we still have sex. There are some days I feel half-alive because I'm just going through the motions and then the next day everything in my body will be acutely sensitive to the idea of losing what little refuge we've found here and I'll have to have her until I can't move.

When Michael's text message comes telling me what day and time he'll call, I chew all my fingernails down to the quick in anticipation. When he calls, he tells us to drive for two days, dump the car (after we've wiped it down) and find a bus station in Nicaragua. There we'll buy a new cell phone and bus tickets that will bring us right into San Jose, Costa Rica, where we will buy another car and drive the rest of the way into Panama. "Get rid of this cell phone the minute we hang up," he says, his voice strong and steady.

"Everything okay there?" I ask.

"It's great, you'll love it here. It's paradise."

When I hang up the cell phone, the text message reads, "From Panama City to Darien Gap, one day. We'll make trip together."

I show Sara what I wrote down from what Michael said. Then we go into the city to an internet cafe to get detailed directions. I throw the cell phone in a trash receptical and we grab dinner at the same place we ate when we came into the city two weeks earlier. When we go back to the house we finish cleaning the rooms we have left and pack up what we're taking with us. Early the next morning, with rubber gloves on, we leave the key on the counter and lock up the house. Driving back into Oaxaca City, we go to the rental office and leave our final payment along with a note saying we had to leave suddenly, thanks for everything. The money we leave should more than compensate them for not having normal notice of our departure.

As we set off, heading southeast, I keep hearing Michael's voice in my head saying it's paradise. But the fact is, without our freedom, it can only ever be a half-truth. We might be established there, but we'll always be ready to run at the first sign of trouble, and I can imagine the contingency Michael has for us when we get there. The plans we'll memorize, the names we'll assume, the lies we'll tell.

The further south we go, the hotter it gets, and at one point we pull over because Sara feels carsick. She throws up as we stand on the side of the road and I take a bottle of water to wet a hanky to run over her face. "It's just the heat," she says.

"I know, I'd give anything for a good ol' snowstorm." I hold her hair back and look into her eyes. She's pale and her eyes are glassy, so I tug her head against my shoulder, hoping it will allow her to catch her breath. "We won't see snow ever again," I say, and I realize with great sadness that the winters I've always known, and snowballs fights with my boy and scarves and beanies and gloves are all a part of my past.

Sara laughs weakly. "No, we won't be seeing snow, not when we'll be living right above the equator."

I feel myself giving under the idea. Hating it. Hating the tropical conditions, hating Panama, and we're not even out of Mexico yet. "What a fuckin' mess," I mutter beneath my breath.

Sara's arm is around my waist and she squeezes me. "It's better than being dead."

I can't help but wonder if that's the biggest lie I keep telling myself.


	16. Sara

In Costa Rica, Lincoln finds an old Toyota that has air conditioning. We pay more for it than we did the old car in Mexico, but he’s being sweet because he’s worried about me being sick. The heat is getting worse and it’s definitely taking it’s toll on me, though I’ve never had a reaction like this.

 

His hand strokes over my head as we go further down the road. Lying down in the seat has been the best way to control the nausea, so I’ve spent all day with my head on his leg as he drives us from Costa Rica to Panama.

 

I have something I’ve got to bring up, though I hate to say anything. But we need to have one thing worked out for certain before we see Michael and LJ again. “Lincoln?” I say softly.

 

“What, hon?” he asks, his eyes darting down toward me from the road, just for a moment.

 

“I feel like we need to have...some sort of definition for...what we’re doing.”

 

His eyes flash down to me again and his brow creases. “Come again?”

 

“Our relationship. You know, before we see Michael again. Just so I know what this is, and I know how we’re presenting it, or if we’re not presenting it...or whatever.”

 

“What do you mean, how we’re presenting it?” His fingers have come to a rest against my neck, and I wonder if he can feel my pulse pounding there.

 

“I mean, are we telling him? Like letting him know?”

 

“He already knows, Sara, that’s why he left.”

 

“I know that, but that doesn’t mean...”

 

“We’re lovers. We’re together, and I don’t plan on that stopping just because we’re with Michael again.” The edge in his voice doesn’t make these words as wonderful as they should be.

 

“I just wondered,” I say, feeling a bit like we’re having an argument.

 

“What did he say in your letter?” He hasn’t asked me about this since the first day of our forced alone time, and in all honesty, I haven’t thought about it much.

 

“He apologized, some more. He told me he wants me to be happy, and whatever I need to be happy he’s supportive of. He never came out and said anything about you, but I felt as though he was giving me his blessing.”

 

Lincoln laughs, but it’s not funny. “His blessing, yeah. His fuckin’ blessing.” The fingers against my throat tense up and then relax.

 

“What did he say in your letter?” I ask in return.

 

“The same thing, basically. He was more specific though. Guess he figured I’d need it spelled out exactly.”

 

“Or, you just couldn’t have an excuse that way. You couldn’t misunderstand.” Looking up at him from this angle makes me realize that the sadness I’ve been feeling growing in him is occasionally overshadowed by anger. He’s both sad for and angry with Michael, and it causes apprehension to bubble up in my heart at the thought of us all being together again. Despite his strong words about not changing things just because we’re with Michael, I know that this hasn’t made him happy. The first few days after we became lovers, he was more relaxed, but he never reached an entirely happy place, and after his nightmare about Veronica and then my father’s death, he descended further into something dark and painful. I keep holding on to him because it’s all I can do. Because I’ve been so sick and needed him so much, he appears to still function, though half-heartedly.

 

“I didn’t misunderstand anything, Doc,” he says, and I tense because he hasn’t called me that in a long time. “I’ve watched Michael do this too many times over the last few years, sacrifice everything for me; his time at first, then his whole fuckin’ life, and when it comes down to it, even his girl. He’ll give up everything if he thinks it will save me or help me, and as we can both tell it’s just a big waste of his time.”

 

I don’t like anything he’s just said, and I disagree with most of it, but I focus on the thing that is the biggest lie of them all. “I was never Michael’s girl.”

 

“You were never Michael’s lover, that’s not the same as not being his girl.”

 

I sit up because he’s pissing me off now. Shoving my hair out of the way I move the seatbelt so it’s across my shoulder. “I was never his girl, period. And for that matter, I’m not your girl. I’m your lover, yes, but other than that, we don’t have any labels for each other.”

 

“Is that right?” he snarls.

 

I can feel this blowing way up out of proportion, but it’s almost like I don’t want to stop it. We’ve walked around on eggshells, not discussing anything about the future except how hot it will be in Panama and what sorts of jobs we’ll have in the surf shop, and suddenly tears are rolling down my face and I’m shouting angrily, “Yes, that’s right! And as far as I’m concerned, the lovers’ thing ends right here.”

 

“Oh, give me a fuckin’ break,” he says in a raised voice. “We just had sex last night, Sara. Everything is fine. I’m willing to stand next to you, let my brother look in our faces and know that we fuck every night of the week. I’ve obviously disregarded the fact that he has given up everything good in his life so we can have this mediocre one. Let’s not throw away the one nice thing we’ve got.”

 

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Here’s one of my big problems. He never calls what we do together making love. We either have sex or we fuck, and he can never say it in any other way. In fact, I get the feeling he likes thinking of it that way because then he doesn’t have to acknowledge any tenderness between us. And that’s the biggest lie of all the lies he exists under. He’s made love to me so many times. He’s been like this gentle giant, especially since my father’s death, always touching me in just the right places, with just the right pressure, his lips melding with mine until I burst into flames under him. And he finds comfort in it, he’s just revealed as much, but he won’t call it what it is.

 

He’s taken care of me this whole trip, making sure I had plenty of water and cooling me off when we had to ride the bus for an entire 24-hour period, always doing whatever he could to see to my comfort, buying bland food along the way that I could eat and keep down. It was all instinctual, too, I never once told him what to do or what I could or couldn’t eat.

 

I just grow to love him more everyday. But all he does is brood over these dark thoughts. Whatever they are he never reveals, but I can see it in his face, and it worries me all the time.

 

I don’t respond to his pronouncement, instead, I wipe the tears from my face that came out of nowhere. His hand reaches over the seat and grabs my arm, his fingers digging into my skin almost painfully. “Are you happy?” he demands.

 

I want to wrench my arm from his grasp, but I know it won’t do any good. “What?” I ask.

 

“Michael wants you to be happy. Are you happy?”

 

“Not right this second, no,” I snap at him.

 

He sighs irritatedly and asks, “Have you been happy? Since we started this?”

 

I look at him, not knowing what he wants from me. All I can do is be honest, something that I’ve prided myself on since the beginning. I can say anything to Lincoln. Some things are uncomfortable, mostly the things in relationship to Michael, but when it comes down to it, I’ve never not said anything to him that needed to be said. “Yes, Lincoln. I’ve been happy.” You have brought happiness. I want to say that, but I don’t, because he’s not ready to hear it. Just like he’s not ready to hear that I love him, though I’d be very surprised if he didn’t know it.

 

“Then there’s no reason to stop it. We gotta give Michael what he wants.”

 

Now I do wrench my arm from his relaxed fingers. “You’re a son of a bitch,” I say, turning my body away from him so I’m totally facing the window.

 

I’m not sure how long we drive in silence before he turns the radio on. He loves the radio, and it’s a wonder to me that it’s been silent this whole time anyway. He finds a station playing old 80s Pop hits, and it’s obviously an American station being broadcast by satellite. He hums or sings along as we drive and the sun starts sinking below the horizon. We haven’t discussed if we were going to stop or if I’d drive so he could sleep. I’m never sick at night, because once the sun goes down the temperature cools considerably.

 

When it gets totally dark, he pulls the car over, but we’re just on the side of the road, and we’re at least 20 miles from the nearest town, according to a sign I saw a few miles back. I look around at him and say, “What the hell are you—“ but his hand slides behind my head and jerks me forward so that our lips collide. He kisses me so thoroughly that if I didn’t realize it was an effort to reinforce what he said in our argument, I might have melted against him. As it is, it just hurts my feelings, and the tears start all over again, reducing me to nothing but an over-emotional woman, and I hate that almost more than the darkness I feel inside him.

 

I shove him back and say, “No, Lincoln. I don’t want this.”

 

He doesn’t let me go, but he doesn’t try to kiss me again and in the twilight, with only the dashboard lights giving us any illumination he says, “You don’t want to want this. Neither do I, believe me. I want to want what’s right, and good, and decent, but I always want whatever is most forbidden.”

 

I drop my head onto his chest and whisper, “There is nothing bad about this.”

 

“If there’s nothing bad about it, why did you have to ask me how we’re presenting it to Michael?”

 

I try to stifle a sob by pressing my mouth against his chest. “Because...I know how much you love him, how much he loves you. I know that you don’t want to see him and be this, so I had to give you a chance to break it off. I had to give you a chance to choose him over me, like I know you want to.”

 

My tears are soaking his shirt and I hate myself for being so weak. For loving him so much that I’d stay with him in whatever capacity he was willing to assign me. He told me he didn’t think I was the lovesick type, and I would have agreed with him then. Now, I don’t know myself anymore. “Sara, I don’t have to choose between you, he made sure of that. That’s how Michael is, he gives you everything you need. I get him  _ and _ you. Don’t you see?” I feel his head shake negatively against mine. “That’s why  _ you _ should have chosen him. I can never give you what you need.”

 

_ I don’t know how to be what you need. _

 

Michael’s words echo in the background of my mind and I wonder what they hell they think I need, like I’m some sort of specially made woman. All I need is love, kindness, tenderness. All I need is his strength when I’m feeling weak. All I need is right here in this car, and it’s the simplest of things. “This is all I need,” I say and I bring my lips back to his. I kiss him aggressively, the way he kissed me. I kiss him in a way that he knows it’s all right to draw me across his lap. In the dark, tropic dankness of Central America, I raise myself over him and make love to him, as surely as I can.

  
  
  


 

When we get to the city center of Panama City, I scan the crowd, looking around for Michael and LJ. Lincoln parks the car and gets out, once again walking with purpose, as though he knows exactly where we’re going. He takes my hand and we walk through tons and tons of people, all selling things, calling out to us, but he just leads me past them all until we get to a fruit stand. He buys an orange for himself and a banana for me and then he just stands there. I keep looking for familiar faces, but I don’t see them until Michael takes Lincoln in his arms. LJ’s grinning, his face even browner than it was when he left us in Mexico. He gives me an enthusiastic hug before dragging his uncle and father apart.

 

I turn to look at Michael, and he radiates. His smile is so large, so genuine, and almost blinding in its sheer happiness. He sweeps me into his arms and hugs me tight, asking, “How was the trip? Are you two all right?” He looks into my face as he pulls back and frowns slightly, but the light in his eyes doesn’t recede at all. “Are you ill?” he asks.

 

I nod, smiling at him because it’s like being infused with sunshine just standing near him. “Just a little heat exhaustion. I’m doing better now that we’ve got a car with A/C.”

 

Lincoln and LJ are still embracing and LJ goes on excitedly about the dive shop, talking a mile a minute until Lincoln says, laughing, “Oh, stop. Slow down. Good grief, I can’t even follow what you’re talking about.” Then he pulls LJ close again, hugging him hard, and I see relief in his face.

 

We walk back to the car, and I can’t get over the change in Michael. Where Lincoln is dark, Michael is completely light, and it seems this surf shop (that they keep calling a dive shop, and I wonder did I never know what they really planned to do?) has already started to make money. “There was nothing on the peninsula like it, can you believe it? It’s the perfect tourist spot, and we’ve only been fully operational for a week, but it’s going quite well.”

 


	17. Michael

I can hardly contain my excitement as I lead them into the house. It’s just above the dive shop (we named it  _ Just Dive On In _ , which was much more LJ’s idea than mine and really only has meaning to the English speaking tourists we serve, not the natives). I had the place scoped out before we got here, but apparently it was a boarding house before. The downstairs converted quite nicely into the shop, storage area and office, while the upstairs has a kitchen and a living area and three bedrooms.

 

This is where it gets tricky. I assume they will share a bedroom, but as I lead them into the stairwell to go to the second floor, I feel somewhat nervous. What if they don’t want to share a room?

 

I’m in front of Sara and Lincoln’s behind her with LJ bringing up the rear. As we get to the top of the stairs I spin around and say, “We tried to decorate a little bit, but we're just guys, so whatever you want to do to homey it up, feel free.”

 

Sara looks up at me, smiling warmly. Then she stops, her hand reaching out for the wall. She’s two steps below me and two steps above Linc, and the narrowness of the stairwell prevents her from falling, but she definitely sways on her feet and Lincoln’s hands capture her waist. “Hey, you okay?” he asks, his fingers wide against her abdomen.

 

The hand against the wall stays put, but her other hand touches her forehead and she says, “Yeah, just a little dizzy.”

 

“It’s stuffy here, come on, right through here,” I say, opening the door.

 

As we walk through it, I wish I were seeing it for the first time myself instead of trying to gauge their reactions. Sara’s smile hasn’t faltered, even though I know she doesn’t feel well, but the only smiles that have cracked Lincoln’s face are the ones he directs at LJ. Then I know they won’t mind sharing a room at all because Lincoln’s arm slips around her waist and he asks right next to her ear, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

Her head turns into his mouth, just slightly. She nods, her eyes closing in a brief flutter of pleasure before she remembers I’m standing here looking at them. I see the awareness in her eyes and a guilty flush fills her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she says. “I just need to eat something, all I’ve had since breakfast is that banana.”

 

LJ pipes up, “We’ve got all kinds of food. I made sure we got everything you’d want to cook….well, okay, everything I’ve missed you cooking. But there’s tons of fruit and stuff too.”

 

“Yeah, Mike, why did you lie on the text message, saying it would take a whole day to get here?” Lincoln asks me. He must realize all the fruit comes from the City Center where we met up.

 

“Just to be safe. You threw the phone away, right?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“It’s just protection. If they’re looking for us further out in the Darien Gap…” I shake my head. I don’t want to get into all the escape plans I’ve made, not this quickly. “Anyway, get Sara something to eat before I give you the rest of the tour.”

 

As LJ hands Sara a bowl of fruit, I hear her murmur to him, “What do you want me to make first?”

 

“Fried Chicken,” he answers without hesitation.

 

“You got it,” she answers, taking a mouthful of fruit. “Oh, heaven,” she breathes. “Taste this,” she says, turning to Lincoln and sticking a forkful of mango against his lips.

 

He accepts it with a little grin as she seems near ecstasy with what she’s eating. Again, Sara’s eyes fly guiltily toward me, and I realize that it’s not just because of me, it’s because they haven’t had an audience at all. They’ve developed an intimacy they didn’t have before, but it was in front of empty rooms and blank walls. Here, they’ve got two interested spectators.

 

“Follow me, I’ll show you your room.” I start across the living area, hearing them trail after me. The bed in their room is a king size, not an easy item to find in Panama, but I couldn’t make Lincoln keep sleeping on a double bed that’s way too short for him.

 

I walk into the room, which would put many of the buildings I designed to shame. The use of light in the room is beautiful and makes it the cheeriest room in the house. LJ helped me pick out flowers to put in a vase on the dresser and we chose bedding that is a muted blue with white and blue rectangular designs on it.

 

“You’re a regular Martha Stewart,” Sara says, a grin on her face. “Look at this, Lincoln. It’s gorgeous.” She’s walks to the window, looking out. I gave them this room because it’s the bigger one, but it also has the front view from the house, which is the ocean. And it is beautiful.

 

“There’s a skylight and everything,” I say pointing above our heads. I look at Lincoln, who’s looking up at the skylight, but I can’t tell if he likes it or not. I’m glad Sara seems so pleased, but really, I did it for my brother.

 

Finally he looks at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Martha Stewart be damned. Who would guess Mr. Structural Engineer could moonlight as a decorator?” He moves over to me, and hugs me again, a hard, tight squeeze that doesn’t match his words. “You’re too good to me,” he says quietly in my ear.

 

“Oh, don’t worry, you’re gonna pay for all it. I start Scuba lessons tomorrow, so you’re going to have to man the store.”

  
  
  


 

Within a month of their arrival in Panama, we develop a routine that manages to keep everyone busy. Sara works the shop on Monday and Tuesday mornings, which allows us, at first to take the Scuba classes we need to get certified. Now, it’s so we can teach lessons if necessary. Both Lincoln and I took the classes and passed certification the first time. LJ had a little trouble, but after taking part of the course again, he certified the second time.

 

Lincoln works the afternoon shift every day. We open at 8am and don’t close until 9pm usually, but if we have a slow night we might shut up shop a little early. Since we live right upstairs, it’s fairly convenient. LJ and I fill in the other shifts, with the weekends, of course, being the busiest day, so two of us work all day on Saturday and Sunday. We also have a part-time employee, Maria, who is 18, but seems to have an eye for LJ, and it’s reciprocated.

 

The routine is good for Lincoln, who has improved since they’ve been here. I could tell, the minute we saw them in Panama City he was in a rough spot, but having things to do and being busy has worked a slight magic on his taciturn disposition.

 

Sara is doing well, though I see her get introspective now and again. We get most of our news online now, since there’s no television where we are. The crashing of Air Force One has been ruled as an accident, though there has still been no explanation for the President and Vice President both being on board. My private thoughts, that I’ve shared with Lincoln, are that whoever got the VP on board must have known the plane wouldn’t make it. It’s just to suspicious to be clean.

 

When Sara comes into the shop in the afternoon on Saturday, I look at her in surprise. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

 

“Lincoln wanted to go surfing, so I told him I’d cover the first couple hours of his shift.” She arches a brow delicately at me. “That okay, boss?”

 

“Fine by me, it’s been sorta slow this morning. Maybe a beautiful woman will draw a few customers.” She blushes prettily and goes behind the counter, away from where I’m stacking surfboard wax. “How’re you feeling today?” I ask. She’s not been the healthiest since they’ve arrived, and I have an idea I’m about to test.

 

“Just fine, thanks. How are you feeling?”

 

She does that, asks the question back as though I’m just being conversational, but I’ve realized it’s a defensive block. “I’m great. Hey, you know what I was thinking? I wondered if maybe you’d like to take Scuba lessons, too? We can teach you, and we can do it without anyone else, if you want. So far I don’t have any sign ups for next week.”

 

She levers herself up on the stool we have situated behind the counter and shakes her head. “No, that’s all right. Lincoln keeps bugging me about it, too, but I’m just not interested.”

 

“Because it’s not good for the baby?” I ask.

 

I’m looking over my shoulder at her and she starts nodding, but then freezes, like a deer caught in the headlights. “What did you say?” she asks quietly.

 

“That’s one of the things they train you about, that pregnant women shouldn’t dive. ‘The pressure can adversely affect the fetus,’” I quote from the manual. “Although they have no specific affects listed, they advise against it. I figured, being a doctor, you already know that.”

 

“How long have you known?”

 

“About as long as you have, I’d guess. You really thought you were sick when you first got here, huh? But then it didn’t clear up exactly, so you figured it out. So did I. You can’t be more than six-seven weeks along, though, right? Or do you know?”

 

“Michael, we cannot just casually converse about this,” she says, her eyes dodging around the store, like there’s someone she can’t see listening.

 

“Why not? LJ’s off with Maria and Lincoln’s surfing. There’s no one here who doesn’t already know.” She squirms uncomfortably, and looks away from me. “Just answer me, Sara. Are you pregnant?” When she nods, her eyes fill with tears and I’ve forgotten all about the wax and I’m running around the counter to gather her into my arms. “Don’t cry,” I say, feeling like a total ass.

 

“Oh, it’s not you, it’s me. You just have to look at me funny and I start bawling,” she says sniffily, but her head stays on my chest. “I’m actually quite happy about it, I just wasn’t planning on telling anyone…”

 

“For how long? Lincoln’s bound to notice, you know.”

 

She laughs in a watery sob and says, “Yeah, that’s what I’m not looking forward too. Every time I imagine his reaction, I wonder, how long until my body starts changing, and he notices? There are very subtle changes now, but that’s not going to last much longer.” She sighs. “At least the morning sickness seems to be over.”

 

“You think he’ll be mad?” I ask.

 

She moves back and looks into my face. “Don’t you?”

 

“Not mad…no. I think he won’t know what to think, and so he may react angrily. But he won’t be mad. He always wanted more kids.”

 

“He wanted kids with Veronica,” Sara says with such sorrow and finality, I now understand why she’s really keeping it a secret.

 

“He’s screwed up right now, that’s true, but he cares about you, and he obviously wants a relationship with you. And I don’t think he thinks about Veronica anymore except to feel guilty that he doesn’t think about her more.”

 

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter to me, what he wants. I’m keeping the baby and if he wants to be a part of it, great, if he doesn’t...well, I’ll obviously have to find my own place and make my own way.”

 

“You will always have a place with us, Sara, even if Linc’s a total idiot. But he won’t be, he won’t let you go. I see the way he watches you. I’ve seen it from the beginning. I’m just glad it’s grown into something.”

 

“It has grown, Michael. It’s grown into something that I don’t think he really wants. Some days I feel so close to him, and then other days...”

 

“He’s going through a lot. But he’s getting better, I can tell. You need to tell him. Talk to him, like you always have.”

 

Her eyes meet mine, shimmering with new tears. “How do you know so much?” she asks me.

 

“I always see the details, Sara, I always have. It’s my talent, and my burden. Give him time, he’ll get to where you are.”

 

She throws her arms around my neck and hugs me tightly. “Isn’t this ironic?” she asks, a gulping breath against my shoulder.

 

I smooth my hand up her back, following the contour of her back through the t-shirt she’s wearing that’s really Linc’s. It is ironic, for all the reasons she could ever come up with. But what’s more ironic is that my brother could sacrifice all he sacrificed for me, and then not be thankful when the same thing has been done for him. On the surface he’s grateful, in all the ways you say thank you. But in the ways you show gratitude, he's sadly lacking. “I’m glad that it turned out like this, Sara. This way I get you and Linc.”

 

She moves back and looks into my face. She searches my eyes, but there’s nothing to find there. In about the same amount of time I fell in love with, I fell out of love with her. She’s amazing and wonderful, and now that she’s carrying my niece or nephew, she’ll never be out of my life, no matter what stupid thing Lincoln might do, but she’s not the thing I’m missing. She’s not torturing me with her presence. It’s Lincoln and the fact that he needs his ass kicked that torments me. He’s about to throw away the best thing he’s got, and I’ve silently watched that too many times to stand idly by this time.

 

The bell over the door jingles as someone walks in and Sara jumps, jerking out of my arms. I turn my head and see LJ and Maria walk in, deep in conversation, except that LJ freezes when he sees us, and the conversation stops. “Hey, Uncle Mike,” he says. We tried to call each other by our aliases in the beginning, but it never stuck. “Sara,” he says, nodding. “You all right?” he asks, noticing her tears. “Is Dad...?”

 

“Oh, he’s fine,” Sara says, waving her hand at LJ. “I was just...a little sad. And, um, Michael just gave me, uh, a hug. I’m fine, really. Don’t worry.” Our eyes dart back together, then skitter apart.

 

LJ eyes us with skepticism. I’d say we never looked guiltier, and it’s not what he thinks, but to make a big deal of it would reveal something Sara’s not ready to reveal. So I step back and head towards the board wax again. “I’m glad you’re here, both of you,” I say, smiling at Maria, whose English is improving the more she and LJ hang out together. “I’ve got all this stock in the back I need brought out here, so why don’t you put in a couple three hours, and we’ll let Sara go back upstairs? She was just filling in for your dad.”

 

The kids agree and I send them on their way, and I also send Sara back upstairs, but not before I tell her, “You need to tell him.”

 

"I know," she says softly. "I'm going to the clinic tomorrow, the one in the city. LJ's going up there with me to get groceries, so I'm going to send him shopping while I see the Doctor. I'll tell him soon," she says.

 

I need to make a pre-emptive strike before she does.


	18. LJ

Maria and I are in the back storage room lugging boxes out to the front of the store (boxes I lugged in here last week), and as we go back to get another box, Uncle Mike follows us, pointing out three other boxes that need to be unpacked. Then he asks, “Hey, can you guys watch the store for awhile? I need to go take care of something.”

 

I want to say no, because I’m wondering what the hell was going on with him and Sara when we walked in. I hate to doubt Uncle Mike, and it seems like he’s over her, at least in that way. I had started to feel like he loved her like I love her, but now I’m feeling a little territorial on my dad’s behalf. “I need to go find your dad, LJ,” Uncle Mike says when I don’t respond immediately.

 

Well, as long as he’s not following Sara upstairs, it seems like a fine idea. “Sure,” I agree.

 

“I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he says as he goes out the door.

 

As we stack the boxes with the snorkeling gear in them, Maria goes over to the counter to grab a box cutter. “I bring Marcella soon,” she says, drawing my attention to her.

 

“Huh?” She walks back over to me, handing me the box cutter.

 

“My sister. Remember, I tell you,” She cocks her head toward the door that Uncle Mike just left through. “She will like him. He will like her.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” I say, smiling at her. Maria is amazing, and beautiful. Her eyes are black, and her hair is black and her skin is the beautiful shade of brown I’ve ever seen. So far she’s only let me see the skin that isn’t covered by her swimsuit, but I’m hopeful. My dad would say she kisses like a whore, because just one kiss and I’m about as turned on as I can get without getting off, but she’s about the sweetest person I’ve ever met which is why I haven’t pressed the issue. I don’t want to screw it up. And she likes me, and she likes talking to me because that way she can learn more English. She’s taught me some Spanish as well, but mostly just the swear words, because that’s what I’m interested in.

 

But Maria has this idea, too. She has an older sister who she thinks Uncle Mike might like. And since Dad’s got a girlfriend, and I’ve got a girlfriend, it only seems right that we get Uncle Mike a girlfriend. Especially if it will help him keep his mind off Sara. “Maria, you need to get Marcella down here right away.”

  
  
  


 

Later in the day, after Uncle Mike comes back from wherever he went and Maria has gone home, I go upstairs. The shop is so slow today. I figure I can grab a snack for me and Michael and go back down in a few minutes, but as I get halfway up the stairs, I notice the door is open. That’s not normal, and for half a second I feel panic shoot through me, even though the only way upstairs is through the shop. Just as I get to the door, I hear my dad’s voice. “We’ve never done it here, on this table. And I know how you are about kitchen tables.”

 

Sara’s voice comes back, full of exasperation and something else…a sleepy, lazy quality almost. “Kitchen tables where more than we eat are off limits, that’s for damn sure.” The last little bit makes me smile and Dad laugh because she’s quoting one of his catch phrases.

 

There’s no talking for a minute, and I realize they’re kissing, and kissing pretty seriously, so I start to back away from the door. I want food, but if I go in there, it’s gonna be embarrassing. Then I hear Sara gasp, “What’s got into you? You’re all frisky.”

 

I poke my head around the edge of the door so I can see them. He’s got her pinned to the counter, where he must have found her chopping up ingredients for dinner. His hips are pressed to hers, and he’s wearing board shorts and nothing else. Her arms are around his neck and though she’s protesting with her words, her body seems very interested in his friskiness. “I just got a wake up call, that’s all,” he murmurs and his lips disappear into the hair along her neck.

 

“Wake up call?” she asks, tipping her head to the side so he has better access.

 

“I’m taking you to bed,” he says, pulling her away from the counter, but no space comes between their bodies.

 

“Lincoln…oh, don’t do that,” she says her voice goes up slightly and then becomes very husky. “We can’t. Not in the middle of the day. Michael and LJ could come up here at any time.”

 

“So? Like they don’t know that we have sex?” When I see his hand pulling her tank top down, I duck my head out of the doorway. I don’t want to see anything, but I’m hoping they’ll head for the bedroom and I can sneak in and grab some food.

 

“Well, we haven’t been having it much lately,” she says, her voice quieter.

 

“And I’m trying to remedy that, aren’t I?” he asks.

 

“Why? Why now?” she shoots right back, and it seems a lot more serious than anything I’ve ever seen between them. Obviously, in front of me, they seem fine. How can they be having problems already? Then I feel like smacking my head with my hand. What was I worried about in the beginning? I’ve grown so content with the way things are I actually started to count on it. That Sara would always be around, that she and my dad were actually…in love. But I should have known that the things I worried about never faded, even if for a while they were forgotten about.

 

“Sara,” and here his voice drops and I have to really strain my ears to hear him. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you, since the first moment in the motel in Missouri. I…just, it’s been hard. To find this, right after I lost…that.”

 

“Veronica. Her name is Veronica. Say her name, Lincoln. Say it out loud. She’s gone, but we’ll never forget her, and you not saying her name just makes it seem taboo when it shouldn’t be.”

 

I feel tears prick my eyes. My poor dad. “I…” he trails off.

 

“You can say it. You can. I don’t mind. I want her to be talked about. I want her to be remembered. Do you think I don’t understand? Do you think I never loved anyone before you?” I hear my dad take a huge, shaky breath. “Say her name.”

 

After a long pause, I hear a whisper. “Vee. Veronica. Veronica Donovan.”

 

“Who was she? Tell me who she was, like that night you told me about her. Who was she to you?”

 

“She was…my first love. She was…everything I knew I didn’t deserve, but she loved me anyway. She was the only girl I never used. She was the only girl who ever called me on my shit.” Another long pause follows this statement and then, “Until now.”

 

I hear Sara half sob, half laugh and then they must be kissing again because I hear my dad make a distinctly sexual sound. When the door to their bedroom closes with a loud thud, I quietly walk to the refrigerator. Smiling to myself, I know that I’ve got to get Maria to bring Marcella ASAP. Uncle Mike needs to see what he’s missing.


	19. Lincoln

When I come up from the water, Michael is waiting for me. We’ve surfed here in this spot before, and it’s easily my favorite, so it’s no surprise that he could find me if he needed to. From the look on his face, I can tell something’s on his mind and I feel fear well up in me. I’ve done everything I can since we’ve been here to believe that this is our life and that we’re safe, but I still have the nagging suspicion at the back of my mind that at any moment someone will burst in and take it all away from me.

 

Or that I’ll just fuck it up so bad, it will all disappear.

 

“Hey,” I say when I get close enough to him.

 

“Hey,” he says in response. He’s sat himself down in the sand and he’s looking up at me with an expression that says I ought to make myself comfortable.

 

I stick my surfboard deep into the sand and pack it in so it will stay upright, then I turn back to him and put my hands on my hips. I’m not sitting down for the lecture I can feel coming on. I don’t know what he’s about, but I have a feeling it’s got to do with Sara, and I have to admit I’m surprised it’s taken him this long. It’s been a month that he’s sat back observing our little arrangement and I’m sure it’s less than the perfect plan he had in his head.

 

“Why don’t you have a seat?” he asks, gesturing to the sand like it’s his couch.

 

“No, thanks,  _ Dad _ . Why don’t you just get on with it?”

 

“Why so defensive?” he shoots back. “You don’t even know what’s up, yet.”

 

“I don’t have to be as fuckin’ smart as you are to see it coming from a mile away.”

 

“What do you think I’m going to say?”

 

“I don’t know, exactly. Something about Sara.”

 

“Sit down, Linc.” His tone doesn’t leave any room for argument.

 

I can’t believe I’m actually cowed by him, but really it’s my own conscience that gets me. Every morning I wake up next to her, every day she’s there for me, but I’ve been there in return less and less. I haven’t been what she first asked me to be, and I haven’t been what I volunteered to be. I haven’t been her friend and I haven’t been her lover, at least not lately. I plop down in the sand a few feet away from him.

 

“First of all, in case there’s any doubt, I’m not in love with Sara,” he says factually.

 

“I know that,” I say, scoffing a little. I knew as soon as we got to Panama that somehow he’d gotten it out of his system, and the only conclusion I came to was that he never had her, not the way I’ve had her. I’ll never get over Sara entirely, if ever I’m asked to. She’s under my skin and in my blood. She’s like Veronica to me now, a part of me just as much as Michael and LJ are. And that scares the hell out of me.

 

“I just wanted it said,” he says softly. He drapes his arms around his upright knees and looks out at the ocean. “I need to say a few other things to you, though, Linc. Sometimes I feel like we don’t need to say anything, that we understand each other. Words have sort of been superfluous with us most of our lives. But then again, sometimes we need the words, too, you know? Like you need to tell people that you love them. Words get in the way sometimes, but other times, it’s what holds you together, like adhesive. You know?”

 

He pauses and glances over at me. I nod slowly, and say, because I’m not sure what he’s aiming at here, “I know how you feel about me, and Sara, Mike. I get it, and I appreciate it.”

 

“Do you? Do you appreciate her? She loves you, you know.”

 

I flinch because that’s the first time it’s been said aloud. It’s not that I don’t know it, but she’s been real careful not to say it, and I’ve been real careful not to think about it, specifically. I dance all around it, knowing it’s the heart of the matter, but until she gets up the courage to say it, I don’t have to deal with it. Or at least I shouldn’t have to deal with it. Not yet, not until she puts it to me. I sure as hell shouldn’t have to deal with it coming from Michael.

 

He mutters expletives under his breath when I don’t answer him. Then he says, “I did all of this so we would have a chance. You’re getting your chance, Linc, and you’re blowing it.”

 

Anger flares in my chest. “You did all of this because you felt guilty. Believe me, I know the motivation of guilt. You felt guilty for no good reason, too. I did what I did for you because you deserved a better life, and then what do you do? You throw it all away, on me. So don’t lecture me about blowing my chance. I’d say we’re tit for tat.”

 

His eyes narrow and he retorts, “So, you’re going to drive Sara away to teach me a lesson? To show me that I did it all for nothing?”

 

“Who says I’m driving her away?” I ask, my voice rising.

 

“I am!” he shouts, hitting his chest with a fist. “I was just up at the shop with her, and we were talking…” he trails off and rubs the top of his head with the same fist he just pounded his chest with.

 

“What, and she said she’s leaving? What?” The words come out defiantly, but panic shoots through me. Where would she go? Back to the States? I know she’s got this crazy idea that she needs to pay for her crime and that only then will her recovery be complete, but there’s no way in fucking hell I’d let her go back.

 

“No,” he sighs the word out. “No, it’s just the way she talks, like she doesn’t expect it to go on. She expects it to end, and that she’ll have to find her own way without us.”

 

“Well, that’s not true. I’d never send her away.”

 

“You don’t have to say the words, Lincoln. Your actions are loud enough.”

 

“What actions!? I don’t want her to leave. I’m just getting through some shit, and she understands that. Unlike you, she has patience with me!”

 

Michael’s eyes widen and he snaps back, “Like I haven’t been patient? My entire life, maybe? Waiting on you to get it together, waiting on you to realize that you deserve something good from life, waiting for you to reach out and take it? Waiting for you to be grateful that I did what I did.”

 

“Oh, Michael, for the love of God. You know that I’m grateful. You saved my life, you gave up everything for me and LJ, to bring us here and make a new life. You need the words? You need me to whimper at your feet? Every day that I live and breathe, it’s all because of you. And I know that, but what more can I do? What do you want? I don’t love the dive shop like you and LJ, so fucking what? I’m still here, and I still do what I need to do and–“

 

“I don’t care about the shop. I care about Sara. I care about what you’re doing. And I know you’re grateful here,” he thumps two fingers against my forehead. “But I want you to be grateful here,” and he pokes me in the chest where my heart’s supposed to be. “I want you to embrace the gifts you’ve been given, and the ones you’ve yet to be given. You can still remember Vee and move on with your life. You can be happy. It’s all right.”

 

I blow out a frustrated breath and lock my hands together at the base of my neck. I stare out at the ocean and respond with full-fledged anger. “Is there some time limit on grief? Am I just supposed to get over it like that?” I snap my fingers in front of his face.

 

He grabs my wrist and growls, “I don’t expect you to ever get over it. It’s Veronica. She’s family. But we didn’t stop living when Mom died and I’ll be damned if I let you stop now because of Vee.”

 

“It’s not up to you,” I say, jerking my arm from his fingers. “And I haven’t stopped living. Most people would think it’s pretty fuckin’ fast for me to already be with Sara. Most people would think I didn’t love her at all.”

 

“Most people don’t realize you and Vee haven’t been together in  _ eight _ years. What are you grieving for? You weren’t together anyway!”

 

I’ve never in my entire life wanted to punch Michael as much as I do right now. “I’m grieving for the lost chance! Dammit, Michael, can’t you see? I almost got her back. I almost got another shot, and it was ripped away.”

 

“Your shot is right there,” he says, pointing an aggressive finger up the beach towards our house. “Your shot is another amazing woman who loves you and wants to build a life with you.” He shakes his head when I open my mouth to retort. “You just listen. Nobody’s asking you to forget about Veronica. Nobody’s asking you stop missing her, or even to stop hoping we can somehow make someone pay for what happened to her. But here’s the bottom line: Do you think she’d want you to pass up what you’ve got in your hot little hands right now? Do you think she’d want you to chase off the best thing that could have ever happened to you?”

 

Veronica’s name is bouncing off the inside of my head and I press my fingers against my temples, trying to still the flow of anger and pain. Michael’s voice fights through and demands, “Do you, Linc? Do you think that?”

 

“No,” I whisper. It’s hardly a sound, but it’s louder than any of the rest of it. It’s louder than Michael’s accusations; it’s louder than even my fear. And it’s the truth: Sara. The beautiful Sara. God, what a fuck up I am. “No,” I say again, a bit stronger.

 

“That’s it. That’s all I wanted.” He abruptly stands and sand sprinkles against my shoulder as it flies off his clothing. “If I were you,” he says, looking down at me. “I’d get my ass up there and make sure she knows that. No questions, no misunderstandings. I’d make sure she knows that  _ whatever _ happens, you want her here, with you, forever.”

  
  
  


 

When I get back to the house, what I should do it grab a quick shower and go down to the store. I haven’t worked all day, but I know if I show up there, Michael will probably have an aneurysm. He wants me to make sure Sara knows that I want her here with me, and just like all the little things he picks up on so easily, he’s right. I haven’t touched her in a long time, like really touched her. We sleep together every night, but considering how we had sex every day for at least a month, to have slacked off like we have, it’s bound to have made her feel like I was losing interest. I just thought maybe I ought to mean it more sincerely and not just do it because I wasn’t able to do it for such a long time. I didn’t want to use her as a convenience.

 

When I see her at the kitchen counter chopping up vegetables, desire flows through me like lava and I realize what an idiot I am. She’s lovely and graceful, the long lines of her body accented by a white camisole-type tank top and hot pink shorts. Her hair is flowing down over her shoulders, bright and shiny against the daylight coming in the window over the sink. She’s beautiful, and she’s mine. And Michael’s right, she loves me, and I can feel it even now, even though she doesn’t even know I’m standing here watching her.

 

I close the distance between us and slide my arms around her waist. “Oh!” she cries, jumping back against me. “Hi,” she says as my lips touch her cheek. “You scared me. I almost chopped my finger off.” She holds up the paring knife so I can see how close a call it was.

 

“Sorry,” I mutter against her skin. She never tasted this good before, and I send my tongue along the line of her throat for a better sample.

 

She arches back a little and her breath catches. “You have fun surfing?” she asks.

 

“It was a blast,” I murmur. Opening my lips I suck her skin against my teeth. I’m suddenly so hungry for her I can’t believe I’ve been on a self-imposed sabbatical. The knife drops from her fingers and her hands come up to dig into my hair. I press my growing erection into the cleft of her buttocks and she presses back into me eagerly.

 

I turn her around and capture her lips warmly with mine. She sighs and arches against me, her nipples already hard. They press against my chest through her little tank top, and I hate the barrier. I just want to strip her naked right here. Lifting my head I glance over my shoulder at the kitchen table. “We’ve never done it here, on this table. And I know how you are about kitchen tables.”

 

Her eyes meet mine, and they’re sleepy and sexy, making me all the harder, but she says with some exasperation, “Kitchen tables where more than we eat are off limits, that’s for damn sure.”

 

The twinkle in her eye makes me want to apologize until the end of time. I’ve treated her horribly, yet here she is all warm and responsive. I laugh softly as her arms circle my neck. Cupping her face in my hands, I pull her mouth back to mine. I kiss her leisurely, my tongue traipsing across her lips, flirting with her tongue until she flicks it back at me.

 

Then she pulls back, gasping, “What’s got into you? You’re all frisky.”

 

I thrust my hips into hers, pinning her firmly to the counter. She arches up into me, and I can feel the answering hunger in her. She’s missed me, too, and that just adds fuel to my fire. “I just got a wake up call, that’s all,” I murmur, dropping my mouth back to her neck.

 

“Wake up call?” she asks. Her head tips to the side so I can get my mouth right on the hollow of her throat, where I suck her skin up against my teeth again. I just want to mark her as mine everywhere I can get my lips.

 

“I’m taking you to bed,” I say, pulling her away from the counter, turning her towards the bedroom.

 

As I turn her, I hoist her up a bit so my erection moves into the cleft of her legs, and I thrust just so that it hits her sweet spot. “Lincoln…oh, don’t do that,” she says breathily. Then her voice drops to a husky murmur that skates along my nerve endings. “We can’t. Not in the middle of the day. Michael and LJ could come up here at any time.”

 

“So? Like they don’t know that we have sex?” And besides this is what Michael wants, he wants me to make sure you know how much I want you and need you. God, do I need you, Sara. I reach to pull the strap of her tank top off her shoulder, exposing one perfectly rounded breast to my gaze and my lips.

 

Before I can duck my head and kiss the pouty nipple, she says, “Well, we haven’t been having it much lately.” The pout in her voice matches the one in her nipple, but it targets my heart instead of my libido.

 

I meet her eyes and say, “And I’m trying to remedy that, aren’t I?”

 

“Why? Why now?” she shoots right back, and I feel like I must have  _ Guilt Trip From Michael _ tattooed across my forehead. But it’s so much more than that. I’ve known for a while I had to do something; I had to move forward, but I couldn’t do it until now.

 

“Sara,” I breathe her name like a prayer and then I take another much needed lungful of air before I say heatedly, “I want you. I’ve always wanted you, since the first moment in the motel in Missouri. I…just, it’s been hard. To find this, right after I lost…that.”

 

She looks deeply into my eyes, penetrating my mind and my thoughts. “Veronica,” she says sharply. “Her name is Veronica. Say her name, Lincoln. Say it out loud. She’s gone, but we’ll never forget her, and you not saying her name just makes it seem taboo when it shouldn’t be.”

 

“I…” can’t. That’s what I want to say,  _ I can’t _ .

 

But she knows and she comes right back with, “You can say it. You can. I don’t mind. I want her to be talked about. I want her to be remembered. Do you think I don’t understand? Do you think I never loved anyone before you?” Involuntarily, I gasp when she says that. God, both Michael and her on the same day. “Say her name,” she demands gently.

 

After a long pause, I whisper. “Vee.” I see her face; her green eyes alight with mischief. “Veronica.” I remember laughter and tears, both caused by me. “Veronica Donovan.”  _ Oh, baby, rest in peace _ .

 

“Who was she? Tell me who she was, like that night you told me about her. Who was she to you?”

 

“She was…my first love. She was…everything I knew I didn’t deserve, but she loved me anyway. She was the only girl I never used. She was the only girl who ever called me on my shit.” Our eyes never separate and I realize if Veronica could have hand picked someone for me, Sara would have been at the top of her list. “Until now.”  _ Until you, Sara _ . Oh, God, I’m so afraid of what this means.

 

Sara half sobs, half laughs and I don’t give myself another minute to think about it. I just pull her tight against me and kiss her like it’s the last time I ever will. Groaning with need, I pull her towards the bedroom, and my foot lands hard on the door, slamming it shut behind us.

 

When we hit the bed, I intend to take her down with me, so she’s under me, but she twists away at the last moment and I fall alone onto the mattress. Looking up at her, I gear up to argue my point of making love in the afternoon despite whoever might come in the house, but she just strips her tank top off over her head and leaves me with a severely salivating tongue. Bending she tugs her shorts and panties down and when she’s naked, she moves to stand in front of me. I spread my legs so she’s standing between them and run my hands up the back of her thighs. “Sara,” I breathe, pressing my face against her abdomen. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

Her fingers wrap around my ears and she tugs my head back. “Just make love to me, Lincoln. Please.”

 

I lunge up, connecting our mouths again and she strips my board shorts off so that we’re both naked. Falling back on the bed, her warm nudity all along my body sends me into an urgent, desperate mode. I just want to be inside her so much, I don’t even know that I can wait five more seconds. I cup her buttocks in my hands and spread her legs. She shifts upward slightly and my cock brushes against the warmth between her thighs, the soft hair teasing me. “I need you, I need you,” I breathe against her mouth, desperately trying to get myself into position.

 

Then she sits up, her hands sliding down my stomach, pushing herself up over me to accomplish the goal herself. She wraps her hand around me, sliding it up and down the length a few times, which sends my eyes rolling back into my head. Then she slides herself down so that I can just barely feel her wet warmth touching the most sensitive skin on my body. I dig my fingers into her hips and buck up against her. “Please, Sara. Please.” Our eyes lock again and she moves down on me, just a little at a time, so torturously slow that I clamp my lower lip between my teeth.

 

Once the connection is made, she doesn’t move. Instead she sits on top of me and clenches her inner muscles, reaching for my hands to pull them from her hips. She laces our fingers together and leans over me. Then she slowly starts to move up and down, left and right, all the while pressing my hands to the bed and holding my eyes captive with her own. “Tell me what you want,” she whispers, her voice covered by the sultry curtain of her hair as it flows around her shoulders and trails over my chest.

 

“You. I want you,” I answer, thrusting up into her. She’s moving so slowly, on purpose, when what I need to do is thrust hard and fast. “Sara,” I groan. I feel sweat popping out all over my body as she continues to control me with the slow, methodical rhythm.

 

“Do you want me like this?” she asks and she slams her hips into mine quick and hard. “Or like this?” and she then she swivels the slow easy pattern she used the moment before.

 

It’s then that I understand. I want her in every way. This is a sexual thing, but it was never about sex. It was about need – the needs she evokes in me, and the needs she fulfills. I want her to be as filled, as needy as I am. I just want her to love me and never let me go, no matter what kind of asshole things I do, because I’m bound to do it again, as long as I’m breathing. I finally answer the question, but it means so much more than its simplicity states. “Whatever you want, I want,” I gasp, arching up into her again.

 

The answer satisfies something inside her though because she drops down against my chest again, her mouth finding mine. Her hands let mine go and I wrap my arms around her body, hugging her tight as she moves over me in a fast, mind splintering way. The last thing I hear before I explode into her is, “I love you, Lincoln.”


	20. Sara

Lying on his chest in utter relaxation lasts only a few blissful moments. His hands are sweeping the length of my back, but I feel an overwhelming need to explain myself. “Lincoln?” I say softly.

 

“Hmmm?” I hear the sound in his chest, where my ear is lying quite comfortably.

 

“I didn’t say what I said to make you say it back.”

 

His response isn’t immediate. “I know,” he replies, his hands still warm and big against my bare skin.

 

Lifting my head, I look into his eyes, and he watches me steadily. “It’s just that sometimes, like right now,” and to my horror tears fill my eyes and clog my throat. “I just love you so much, that it needs to come out.” I look away from him for a brief second, cursing my pregnancy for the first time. Why does everything have to make me cry? “Anyway,” I try clearing my throat, but it doesn’t really help. “I just didn’t want you to think I said it for some other reason. It was for myself. And I want to be able to say it, when I’m feeling it.”

 

His hands slip up into my hair, cradling my head and drawing our lips together. “I’m glad you love me, Sara,” he says. “Just give me a little more time.” I nod and his thumbs move to my cheeks to brush my tears away. “Why are you crying?” he asks.

 

I shrug and then slide off of him so I’m lying beside him on the bed. Sighing deeply, I battle within myself. I wanted to tell him about the baby after I see the doctor tomorrow, just so I’ll know things for sure. I have an idea of the due date, but I’d like a second opinion. “I’m just a little emotional,” I say and he turns up on his side, sliding his arm under my head so it rests in the crook of his elbow.

 

He kisses my lips gently, but somehow the passion that erupted in him feels as though it simmers right below the surface. He’s replete for the moment, but far from satisfied. While his depression affected our sex life, I didn’t know what to expect from him. Every day was different, but if Lincoln has a normality, then this feels like it. This feels like it did at first, just the level of energy and his focus on me. And while I never thought his sadness had anything to do with me directly, I couldn’t help but think that it might end with me. The path he’s on, leading away from Veronica, to whatever his new life will be, it could include me or I could just be what helped get him through it. And while I know that would ultimately break my heart, I couldn’t deny him my help, not after the strength I received from him.

 

And now the baby. He doesn’t know yet, and maybe he won’t understand it even when he does know, but this child has and will continue to save my life. I’ll always be an addict, but being a parent will give me responsibility beyond myself. I can see how LJ’s need for Lincoln to be a father keeps him moving when he wants to give up. It’s a different kind of love relationship, and no matter what it can’t end. Lincoln and I are victims of bad parenting, and I think in the end that’s what makes him a good parent, and what will make me a good parent. I want this baby, his baby, our baby. I want a chance to love a child, and raise him or her to be a good person.

 

“I should go finish getting dinner ready,” I say softly, touching his face with trembling fingers. Now that I’ve declared my love, it seems to have grown to fill my chest to overflowing and it oozes from my pores as I stroke his skin.

 

“Oh, screw them, they can fix their own dinner,” he mutters, dipping his head into the cove of my neck.

 

“Screw them?” I question. “You’re including yourself in that bunch, right? It’s not just Michael and LJ who expect food to be ready for them.”

 

“We only expect it because you always deliver,” he says, muffled against my skin. “Let’s just stay in bed the rest of the day.”

 

“That was okay on our little honeymoon,” I remind him. “But this is real life. You should be in the store, shouldn’t you?” He shrugs now, his whole body shaking mine. “Ya lazy bum,” I say in mock protest, reaching down to pinch his ass.

 

“Hey,” he says, jerking against me. He lifts his head and kisses my lips again. “Don’t make me retaliate.” His tongue swipes at my bottom lip and I touch mine to his playfully until he kisses me in earnest. His hand cups my breast and his thumb strokes over the nipple until it shrinks and thrusts up at him. He pulls his mouth from mine to brush light-as-air kisses over it and I gasp, my hands diving into his hair. “Is it just me, or are you getting bigger here?” he asks, his tongue dallying over the sensitive nub. “You seem a bit…” he trails off as he purses his lips over the nipple and sucks delicately. I cry out because my breasts aren’t just getting bigger, they’re more sensitive too, and his concentration on this nipple is both a pleasure and a pain.

 

“Lincoln! Oh, please,” I can’t control the reaction and he lets me go in response to the pain in my voice, I’m sure. His blue eyes are dark with renewed passion, but slightly concerned, and I suddenly know I need to tell him, right now. And I’ve never been more terrified. “I need to tell you something,” I say breathlessly.

 

I push him back, and climb out of his embrace as I get off the bed. I pull on my robe, which is hanging over the back of the chair next to our bed and I cover myself up. I don’t want to be naked and vulnerable physically as I lay out the emotional equivalent of my MCAT’s.

 

“Come back here,” he says, his hand stretching out to me. “What’s the matter?” he asks, when I stay out of his reach.

 

I sit down in the chair and take a deep breath. “My breasts are bigger, Lincoln. And there’s a reason why.”

 

His brow creases and he sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “What’s going on?”

 

“Tomorrow, LJ and I are going into the city.”

 

“I know. It’s grocery day.”

 

“Yes, and I’m going to go see the doctor while we’re up there.”

 

He frowns now and stretches his arm out to touch my leg with his hand, not an easy feat as the chair is a few feet from the bed. “Are you worried about the heat exhaustion still? I thought you were feeling better.” He pats me gently before leaning back.

 

“I am feeling better,” I say, nodding. “It’s not heat exhaustion.” I blow out a breath and blurt it out because it’s never going to be easier. Just do it, like ripping off a band-aid. “Lincoln, I’m pregnant.”

 

Like the day I confessed to him that I needed him in the backyard of our house in Mexico, he sort of pauses, like he’s been hit in the head with a blunt object. His eyes were already on my face, and they stay there, locked. But I realize he’s holding his breath, or perhaps I just knocked it right out of him. “What?” he asks faintly and then his eyes drop to my stomach. Then they lift to my breasts, outlined by the soft cotton robe and he’s putting it all together, piece by piece. “What?” he asks again, shaking his head.

 

“Pregnant.” It’s all I can choke out around the lump in my throat.

 

Like the calm before a storm, he looks back at my face, puzzlement still the emotion that’s showing. “I–uh, what?” he asks again. “How the hell…?” but he trails off, as if it’s just all too much to take.

 

And it is, my emotions get the better of me and I say hotly, “When you have sex several times a day for 4 weeks straight, and you don’t use any birth control, this is the result!”

 

He looks away from me finally and shoves a hand through his hair. “But…you're a doctor,” he says lowly, and then he gets up to find his shorts.

 

The fact that he’s no longer comfortable being nude just adds to my agitation and I say shrilly, “And that means, what exactly? I can turn off my fertility?”

 

He spins around and looks at me incredulously. “I just figured you’d taken care of it. I didn’t even think to ask. I just–“

 

“So it was my job to make sure? Weren’t we both in this relationship?”

 

“As far as I can tell, we still are!” he yells. “But if you’d said anything to me, I would have…I just assumed that…”

 

“Why did you think that? Because I’m a doctor I can conjure up birth control pills?”

 

“Sara,” he says my name in two long syllables, like he’s reaching down into the depths of his soul for some much needed patience. “All I’m saying is I would have bought some condoms, if it had occurred to me that we needed them. I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re sorry? What exactly are you sorry for?” I can’t stay sitting any longer, and I spring to my feet, only then I have no idea what to do next. I don’t want to walk closer to him, but I don’t want to take my eyes off of him either.

 

He backs away from me, and bends over to slide his shorts up his legs. “I’m sorry that we didn’t have this discussion some time ago,” he says very carefully. “This is obviously not a happy thing for you, and I’m sorry.”

 

“Lincoln,” I say, realizing that my defensiveness has given him completely wrong idea.

 

“No, no. It’s okay. I need to…think. Why don’t you…I’ll cook dinner, okay? You can just, whatever, take a nap. Pregnant women get tired easily, right? Just take a load off.” He turns toward the door, but then hesitates. “When you see the doctor, are you going to ask… Are you going to, I mean, I don’t even know if abortion is legal in Panama? I mean, are you…?”

 

“No! No, I don’t want to get rid of it,” I say and tears flood my eyes again. Oh, could I have handled this any worse?

 

“Are you sure?” he asks softly. “You don’t seem very sure.”

 

“I’m sure,” I say as the tears spill over. I cross my arms over my middle, wishing I could just take it all back. I want to tell him how sure I am, that nothing in my life is more important right now than having this baby, but the words stick in my throat and practically cut off my air.

 

He lingers a moment longer, looking at me with a mix of skepticism and concern. Then he says gently, “You just relax, okay? I’ll take care of everything out here.” When he closes the door quietly behind him, I throw myself on the bed and sob my heart out.

  
  
  


 

I don’t go out into the front room, even after I hear LJ and Michael come up. Sometime later, LJ knocks on the door, I know it’s him because he always does the one-three knock, but I pretend to be asleep when he opens the door. I hear Lincoln’s voice just beyond the door, “What’s she doing?”

 

“Sleeping,” LJ says. Then he shuts the door and I can hear their voices, but not their words.

 

If it was just Lincoln out there, I might be able to work the courage up to go out and tell him I’m a complete fool and the one of the happiest moments of my life was when I realized that I felt so abysmal for a reason and not just because of the heat. I’d tell him that I love him and this child and all I want is for us to be together.

 

But somehow, it’s just not that easy. Maybe if he’d gotten angry I would have been able to handle it better, but my emotions are so out of control that his low-key response seemed to inflame me for some unknown reason. I can see now how stupid I was, and I’m embarrassed. But I still don’t know how he feels, and though I can guess he didn’t want me to have an abortion, just by the way he asked about it, he also wouldn’t have told me not to.

 

Talk about a lukewarm reaction, on his part. On my part: straight up crazy. No wonder some men run for the hills when they get a woman pregnant. I haven’t been around very many expectant mothers, most of my friends are professionals who haven’t had children yet, but I feel like I’ve got a split personality sometimes. And I don’t know why I couldn’t just let him tell me what he was thinking, why I had to shove words in his mouth and act like he somehow was putting all the responsibility on me. The truth is we never talked about birth control, and the truth is I wouldn’t have wanted to use condoms, even if he’d offered. I’ve never cared for them and I wouldn’t have wanted anything separating us.

 

In my most introspective moments, I’ve come to understand that subconsciously I must have wanted this from the beginning. I did nothing to prevent, and though birth control should be a shared responsibility, I’m the one who has to carry the consequence. I’m the one who wanted a child, wanted the responsibility of an actual person who would need me and depend on me, at least for a portion of their life. And in the end, if this doesn’t work out with Lincoln, I’ll always have his child. Which is about a cliched as I can get, but it’s also as honest with myself as I can be.

 

I also haven’t craved heroin, morphine, or anything like unto it since I’ve known I was pregnant. Perhaps it’s just the increased endorphins that give me a natural high, but whatever it is, I’m thankful everyday for it. And that feels like an extension of Lincoln himself, somehow the strength I thought I was getting from him is actually inside my body now, if that makes any sense. It makes sense to me and it comforts me very much.

 

When he comes in to bed a few hours later, I still pretend to be asleep. I hear a plate clink against the dresser and then he sits down on the bed, on the side I’m curled up facing him. His fingers go into my hair and he whispers, “Sara. Beautiful Sara.”

 

I open one eye a slit, and he grins before kissing my cheek very chastely. “I brought you some food, if’n you’re hungry. Eating for two ought to make you hungry. And I want you to eat.” I let both eyes open all the way and I just look at him. I don’t know what to say, and sorry seems so trite. “Feels like we traded, huh?” he asks. “I’m usually the jerk, and you’re the one who has to be all ‘I forgive you.’ But at least you have a good excuse for being crazy. I’m just a fuck up.”

 

“No, you’re not,” I say and I can feel tears choking me again.

 

“Michael knows, doesn’t he?” he asks, deflecting my argument.

 

“He guessed. Did you tell LJ?”

 

“No, but I told him I’m going with you guys tomorrow.”

 

“You are?” I hesitate. “Why?”

 

“Because it’s my baby too, and I want to hear what the doc says. Assuming we can understand him. I told LJ he should see if Maria wants to come with us, we might need her.”

 

Now I do start crying and he gathers me into his arms when I stretch mine out like a little child. “Lincoln,” I start and finish, because I can’t talk after that.

 

“I want to have a baby with you, Sara, is that what you needed me to say?”

 

I nod wildly against his shoulder and sob out, “I want you to want it, not just say it.”

 

“I want it. I really do. I want a little baby with you, okay?” He cups my face in his hands and holds me back so he can look into my eyes. “Do you want to have a little baby with me?” he asks.

 

I nod, biting my lip in an attempt to control my emotions. “Yes,” I say, wrapping my arms around his shoulders more tightly to keep him close to me. “I want the baby very much. Very much. More than anything,” I insist, clinging to him in an embarrassing sort of way.

 

“Good,” he says in my ear. “Then we want the same thing, and lucky for us, it seems like, right now, anyway, we get what we want.”


	21. Michael

I might have been upset as I watch all four of my employees pile into a car to drive up to the city, leaving me to man the shop alone, but it’s hard to find any anger when Lincoln’s dancing eyes glint at me through the windshield and he backs the car up. Only ten minutes ago, we stood in the back room of the shop and he said, “Just so you know I got the message yesterday, and I’m going with Sara to the doctor today.”

 

I tried to keep my expression blank, because I could just see him getting angry if he thought she had told me something before she told him. He slapped my shoulder hard. “You don’t have to act like you don’t know. You were paying attention, I wasn’t. You’re a good guy, I’m a bastard. This is not new information.”

 

I smiled because he wasn’t putting himself down so much as he was truly chagrined. “But she loves you anyway,” I said with mock incredulity.

 

A grin split his face, one from the bottom of his heart, something I haven’t seen in a long, long time. “I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it? You’re going to be an uncle all over again.”

 

“Congratulations, Linc.”

 

He stood there a moment longer and then pulled me into a hug. He held me tight, tighter than necessary, but it was the strength of his emotions that touched my heart, not his arms. “I can never pay you back what I owe you, Mike. You’ve got me, until the end of fuckin’ time.”

 

“That’s all I ever wanted,” I replied, hugging him in return.

 

When he left a moment later, I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer it would be. Until he was ready to admit everything–his love for her, his desire to have a normal, traditional family. I wonder how long it will be until it’s like the last three years never happened, but instead it will feel like this is how it’s always been. I look forward to it like nothing in my life ever before.

 

Engineering degrees be damned, the happiest I’ve ever been is here, on the beach, surrounded by lilting Spanish accents that I’m starting to understand a little bit more every day. Here in a foreign land, in a place where I should feel discomfort, I’ve found an inner peace and stability I never knew in Chicago. Maybe it’s the ocean breezes, maybe it’s the lack of a plan, I don’t know. Maybe it’s distance from all the things that remind me why Linc and I had such different lives. Maybe it’s easier to accept death, and move on when you aren’t constantly in the places where you spent time with those people. I never saw the streets of Chicago for what they were: an emotional prison, tying me to the past. Going to Fox River and then escaping from it has given me freedom, in another sense. I never want to go back, even if I could.

 

As I re-enter the shop, waving at them one last time as they drive away, all I know is I never want to leave here. I hope every day that the manhunt died away and that there are bigger and badder criminals occupying the minds of the FBI.

 

A couple hours pass with an influx of customers and by noontime I have five people signed up for Dive Classes for the next week. It’s stuff like that, the things you can’t plan for that I find comfort in. Linc’s gonna have to work tomorrow, baby or no baby. I can see him now using it as an excuse. “Come on, man, I gotta take care of Sara…” and he’ll smile and the temptation to let him have his way will only be outweighed by the fact that LJ and I can’t do everything ourselves.

 

The bell rings again, signaling another customer, and I look up with a greeting on my lips. “Good afternoon.”

 

“Hello.” It’s an older, American man, and he smiles when he sees that I too am American. “This is the only English speaking business on the peninsula, what luck.” He looks around the store at some of the displays. “You rent surfboards?” he asks.

 

“Yes, we do. Did you have specific type of board in mind?” I ask, coming around the counter to show him to the left side of the store, where we keep the boards.

 

I hear his footsteps as he follows behind me and as I turn to face him again, he says, “You’re Michael Scofield.”

 

Because I’m so caught off guard, there’s no way to disguise my reaction. I try to smooth my features, wondering wildly who the hell he is, when he puts his hands up as though to reassure me. “I’m not here to turn you in or to hurt you. I just came to tell you that you and your brother have been exonerated.”

 

I blink, speechless. He removes the baseball cap he’s wearing and runs his hand through his hair in a gesture vaguely familiar to me as something I’ve seen Lincoln do a million times. I finally get the wherewithal to ask, “We’ve what? How could  _ I _ have been exonerated?”

 

“I know a few people,” he says with a shrug. His eyes roam across my face and he clears his throat. “You look a lot like your mother,” he comments. “Your face, in your eyes, your cheekbones. You have her lips, even. I could see it in your mug shot, but it’s much more obvious in person.”

 

I put a hand out, because I suddenly feel unsteady on my feet. I lean against one of the mounted surfboards and search his face for some sort of recognition. It’s only that he reminds me of Lincoln somehow that sets off a warning bell in my head. “How did you know my mother?” I ask, though I’m sure I already know the answer.

 

He takes a deep breath. “I’m your father, Michael.”

 

I suddenly feel sick to my stomach as I look into the face of stranger who is somehow quite familiar to me. He continues to watch me with real interest, which he should, because he’s never seen me in person. He left before I was born and he never came back. I know Lincoln saw him a week before our escape, but that was more than five months ago now.

 

When I don’t say anything, he clears his throat again. “I just came here to tell you that you’re free and clear. They caught or killed all the other escapees, with the exception of Fernando Sucre. No one knows where he got to, but I could find out if you want me too. I have connections.”

 

I can function enough to say, “I’d rather Sucre stay safe, wherever he is. He isn’t a bad guy. Who’s dead?” I ask.

 

“They gunned John Abruzzi down in Washington, D.C. They got Benjamin Franklin just outside his wife’s house in Chicago. He could have gone quietly, but he didn’t and they had to shoot him. Patoshik, Apolskis, and Bagwell were all recaptured on tips from civilians.” His eyes flicker around the shop. “They never found Sara Tancredi though, and, of course, after her father was killed, many people believe she was killed too.”

 

“What do you mean, they never found Sara Tancredi?” I ask, and he looks back at me.

 

“She went missing, from her hospital room the day after the escape. She’s believed to be an accessory to the escape, you know.”

 

“If I’ve been exonerated, shouldn’t that absolve her of any guilt?”

 

“Well, yes, since they can’t prove she left the door unlocked on purpose anyway, but she’s still wanted for felony drug theft. She stole medical supplies, and they found all of that in her apartment when they found her almost dead.” He pauses and then asks, “Is Lincoln here?”

 

“No,” I answer, shaking my head. “He went up to the city. He won’t be back until late tonight. What about LJ? Has he been exonerated?”

 

“Yes, everything is resolved for LJ too.”

 

“So, we can just go back to the States and it’s like nothing happened?” I ask, disbelief dripping from my words.

 

“It is. Don’t you read the news, online, at least?” I shake my head, admitting to myself I stopped a couple weeks before because there was never anything new, and that way when my housemates asked me about it I could tell them I honestly didn’t know. “Well, you can look it up, and then you don’t have to trust what I’m telling you.”

 

“I don’t trust you. How could I?” I ask before I’ve even thought it through. I can’t believe I’m standing here with my father and he could be anybody. He could be anybody whose brought me the best news I could ever hear yet I feel nothing. I wish Lincoln was here, but it has nothing to do with him seeing our father, or hearing this information in the first person. “You’re nobody to me,” I continue, looking at him and seeing him truly as he is. He may share some physical attributes with my brother, but that’s where all similarities end.

 

“I know that. I know that.” He turns slowly away from me, only to turn back and say, “Tell Lincoln I did what I could to set it right. I know he lost someone he loves very much because of me, and I did what I could.”

 

“How do you know about Veronica?” I mean it in both the way of that she’s dead, but that she was someone Lincoln loved.

 

He answers both questions. “Just because I wasn’t in your life didn’t mean I didn’t keep tabs on you. And the entire conspiracy has been revealed. Everyone who died in relationship to Caroline Reynolds' concoction has been accounted for.”

 

“Lisa Nix and her husband, too?” I ask, interrupting him.

 

“Yes. Everyone. Terrance Steadman has been imprisoned for the rest of his life.” He steps back, and this time I know he really will leave. He’s not welcomed to stay, and I’m sure as hell not letting him know we know where Sara is. “I’m sorry, though that’s not enough. Just tell Lincoln, tell him I did what I could. They recovered Veronica’s remains…and I had her buried near your mother in Sunrise Cemetery in Chicago.”

 

“It would never be enough. You can’t pay back what was stolen from us.” And I mean so many things, from birth on up.

 

“I know that, Michael,” he says softly, and somewhere inside me, I believe that he’s sorry. “But I did what I could.”

  
  
  
  


 

I close the shop early and go upstairs only an hour after he leaves. I know they won’t be back until late in the day, but I have to go look up the information on the Internet. Just as he said, it’s all there in black and white for me to read yet it doesn’t take away the surreal quality of it all.

 

It doesn’t change anything, in fact. Knowing I’ve been lauded as a hero for what I did, knowing that the country I should feel pride in is picking up the shattered remains of its leadership, knowing that Sara’s father died to bring it all about…it changes nothing for me. I will stay here in Panama, but no longer have to lie if I’m asked my name. I will keep doing what I’ve been doing for the last month, and if I die doing it, I’ll be happy.

 

But I recognize that three other people are going to have three different reactions to this news. And Sara is still a wanted fugitive, though I can’t imagine her serving time for stealing one bottle of prescription morphine. If anything they would plea-bargain her down to probation and an agreement to do a drug treatment program. But Lincoln would probably have a coronary if she tried to go back and take care of it. She’s mentioned it now and again, but it was never a real possibility because none of us could go back. Now, that’s not the case.

 

For about five full minutes I consider not telling them. We could live out the rest of our lives, never even be a blip to anyone and no one would be the wiser. But in my heart of hearts, I know Lincoln doesn’t want to be here forever, and LJ should go back and at least graduate from high school, though I can’t imagine Linc being content with that. He was always determined when LJ was small that he would grow up and follow in my footsteps, not walk the same path as his father. I can’t keep it from them. I have to tell them. And what happens next, is completely out of my hands.


	22. LJ

So, road trips with my dad are a blast. He loves the radio, so he always shops around for a station that we can sing along with, or rather a song  _ he _ knows, so  _ he _ can sing along. What's funny, of course, is that in Panama, there are way more Spanish stations than English and Maria keeps saying, "Oh, I love this song!" and then she sings along, leaving us all out in the cold. Sara and I don't care, but as soon as the song is over, Dad starts shopping again, hoping for a song he knows.

I really prefer Maria's singing to Dad's truth be told. She has a pretty voice; Dad, well he's not horrible or anything, but he's no Maria.

When we get to the marketplace, Dad parks the car and I think we'll probably split up to get the shopping done faster, but it's here that Dad grabs my arm and takes me aside for a moment. "I need to tell you something,”  he says.

"What's up?" I ask.

"See that clinic over there?" He points across the street and I see a doctor symbol above this small building. "Sara and I need to go there, and we need Maria to go with us, you know, like I said, to translate."

"What do you need to go to the doctor for?" When he told me to bring Maria along, I thought it would be so he could barter better with the traders, because some of them try to play you that they don't understand English when really it's just a way to worm more money out of you.

Dad smiles, the edges of his lips threatening to break into a full-fledged grin. I haven't seen a look like this on his face in a long time. "Sara's having a baby, kid."

It takes a minute for that to register. A baby? As in rock-a-bye baby? I look over Dad's shoulder and see Maria and Sara talking to each other next to the car, not even looking in our direction. "What?" I ask, my eyes coming back to his.

"A baby. You know, a baby," and like he's reading my mind he makes a cradle with his arms and rocks them back and forth, like  _ I _ don't speak English all of a sudden.

"You guys are having a baby?" I ask, and it comes out sorta sharply, like I don't like the idea.

And maybe I don't.

Dad's smile fades and he puts a hand on my shoulder. "Yeah, LJ, we're having a baby. We didn't plan it, it just happened, but she needs to see a doctor. It's real important that she sees a doctor, you know, for her own health and-"

"I'm not stupid," I say, knocking his hand off my shoulder. "I know why pregnant women have to go to the doctor. Fine. Okay. I just wish you woulda told me yesterday," I say and I feel my face scrunching up in that I've-got-a-bad-attitude expression.

"I only found out myself, yesterday, LJ, otherwise I would have told you sooner. I'm sorry, really, to spring it on you. I should have thought about your feelings more."

He looks disappointed, and I feel sorta bad for being a jerk, but not bad enough to say I'm sorry. "Yeah, well, it's not like you can change it now, can you? You can't take it back."

"Hey," he says, and there's a warning tone in his voice. "I don't want to change it. I'm excited about it, and so is Sara, and you better not say anything to upset her. She's real emotional as it is."

"Oh, I get it. It's okay for me to be upset, but not Sara?" I ask, and even I can hear how shitty I sound.

"Where is this coming from?" he asks, his fingers tipping my chin up so our eyes lock. "You love Sara. You've been fine with this whole situation, and  _ now _ you're giving me attitude?"

I shrug because I don't really know why I don't like the idea. I mean, growing up, I always wished I had a kid brother or sister, because sometimes it got kinda lonely, especially when Dad wasn't around. But now? I'm 16 years old. A sibling that much younger than me would be like...

Me and Uncle Mike, that's what it would be like.

His hand comes back up and wraps around my neck in what could be a threatening grip, but it's warm and gentle and his fingers brush against my skin softly. "LJ, there's a lot of things I've asked of you since you were born, I know that. I know I've let you down too many times to count, but this is important. If you can get through all that other shit and not hate my guts, please don't let this be the thing that does it. I can't explain it, I don't understand it exactly myself yet, but I've never had a moment like I did when Sara told me.” He pauses here and looks down at the ground briefly. “You know when you came along, I was a lot younger, and lot stupider. But I love you more than anything, and a new baby...it just feels like I'm getting another shot, you know? Like someone thinks maybe I deserve another chance at doing this family thing. I need you to be with me on it. Please, LJ. Please."

His eyes are bright, and I wonder if he's going to cry. I sure as hell can feel some tears in my throat and I'm starting to feel kinda stupid myself. To dodge that feeling I ask the next question that pops into my head. "Are you gonna marry Sara?" It's a fair question; I know he only married my mom because of me.

He stiffens, the shock that idea inspires causes him to take at least 30 seconds to respond. "I don't know," he says, glancing over his shoulder at Sara and Maria. "I don't know," he says more firmly. "Right now, I just want to hear what the doc has to say about her pregnancy. Okay? Can you give me this? Are we okay?"

I smile, and it's genuine. Whatever I was feeling— _ jealousy? _ —was momentary and it seems to have passed. "Sure, Dad," I say and pat his chest so he knows I mean it. "We're fine. And I do love Sara, just so you know. And, Dad? I think you should marry her. You know, if you want to know what I think."

The trip home is quiet, and Dad asks me to drive so he can sit in the back seat with Sara. This means Maria gets to control the radio, which is just better all around as far as I'm concerned. But I see them in the mirror, and I feel something in my chest that is completely new.

My parents divorced before I was two years old, so the only memories I have of them together is fighting over money or Dad being late to pick me up. Even during the good times, they only shared strained courtesies. The kindest I'd ever seen them be toward each other was the day my mom dragged me up to Fox River after I got arrested for Possession with Intent to Sell. When she handed me off to my dad, it was the only time I saw them truly working together, and I was too pissed to appreciate it. I was pissed at her for making me go see him and I was pissed at him for having gotten himself thrown in prison. I didn't want to be there and it wasn't until later that it occurred to me that they had been kind to one another.

I have vague recollections of when Dad and Vee were together, when I was pretty young, but it wasn't for very long, and any other girlfriends he ever had he kept separate from me. Seeing him with Sara has been interesting anyway, because it's not the way I usually see him, you know, in a relationship. But today I can tell that it has changed even more. He touches her like she's made of porcelain, like the fact that she carries his child makes her fragile. It's sweet to see, and the feeling in my chest is contentment. Contentment that he could love a woman, that we might create that family he's saying he's getting a shot at.

In 33 weeks, I'll have a new brother or sister. The doctor told us that Sara is due around the middle of April next year. (He didn’t even blink an eye at all of us in the exam room with her, and I got the feeling that family events in Panama are a shared thing.) Once a month for the next several months, she'll have to come to town for a check up. We stopped to get some vitamins for her after we did our grocery shopping. I never even knew pregnant women had to take special vitamins, and I could tell Sara wasn't sure if they would have something like that here, but it turns out as long as you've got the money you can get things just like in the States.

I see Sara rest her head in the curve of Dad's shoulder and close her eyes. Dad's head leans on the top of hers and his eyes close, too, so I shift the rearview mirror down, because I'm guessing he's got a hand on her belly, which he does. Since we walked into the doctor's office, it was like he couldn't stop touching her there, with a wonder and reverence I think is interesting. Dad has been changed by all of these things, the time on death row, his near-execution, being chased across the country, everything. But this, Sara and this new baby, has changed him the most. It's like quiet has finally come.

I remember Sara, that day on the beach when she told me to give Dad time, that he would get better and be okay after Veronica's death. I wonder if she knew then that this is how it would make itself okay. I also find myself reaching over to grab Maria's hand, squeezing it tightly. I don't know that I love her, or that this is going to be anything more than a fun time, a girl I knew for awhile, but I do know that I'm finally getting a glimpse. I'm finally seeing what love is supposed to do to people: help them, heal them, change them. I also remember my mom going through a church phase a few years back. She told me God is love, and quoted verses from  _ The Holy Bible _ to me. She explained the change that comes over people when God comes into their lives.

I think God helps us change by sending other people into our lives, too.

 

When we get back to the house, the shop is dark and all closed up. Dad gets his keys out, and though he tries to stay calm, I see the urgency that launches him up the stairs to make sure Uncle Mike's all right. Sara, Maria and I run up right behind him and Michael is just sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for us. He looks at Maria pointedly and Dad turns to her, "Hey,  _ chica _ , we really appreciate all your help today, but we need to have a family meeting, okay? We'll see you tomorrow."

Maria nods and gives me a hug and kiss goodbye before I walk her to the door. Then I sprint back up the stairs to see what's up. Uncle Mike waits for me to come back, and he takes a deep breath before he lifts the laptop screen so we can see the headline news from the U.S.

We all crowd around the table to read it and then Uncle Mike says, "I had a visitor today. And he told me all about this. So apparently, the three of us are free and clear to go back."

Dad's got his arm around Sara and I can see why. The unqualified, but universal belief, is that Vice-President Tancredi discovered that the President had Lincoln Burrows framed for her brother's murder, though he wasn't dead at all. Tancredi boarded Air Force One that day to confront her about it. Secret service Agent Paul Kellerman, only after his own arrest, accused that Air Force One had been tampered with by a rogue agent who works for a bureau Kellerman claims is higher up than the CIA. Kellerman's name draws my eyes vigorously and I'm surprised to see that he's confessed to multiple murders in exchange for a life sentence instead of execution. My mother and stepfather's names are among the list of his victims.

Former Governor Frank Tancredi left all the evidence he had gathered in a safe deposit box in Washington, D.C. and sent the key to a trusted former employee in Illinois, which is why it had taken several weeks for the entire story to unravel. The employee didn't know for sure what the key unlocked at first and had had to follow clues left by Tancredi. In the wake of his death, the employee had moved very slowly to ensure his own safety.

When Sara starts to cry, Dad takes her to their room without saying anything. I look at Uncle Mike in disbelief. It just doesn't seem like it's really true. It's all been so unbelievable, every moment of it; if it hadn't actually happened to me, I would never believe it could have happened at all. And now, it's over. Michael's hand reaches up to squeeze my shoulder comfortingly. "Holy shit," is all I can say.

"Indeed," Uncle Mike responds.

I read the rest of the article and then I sit down heavily in a kitchen chair. "They're gonna want to go back," I say, nodding my head toward Dad and Sara's bedroom.

Uncle Mike presses his lips into a thin line. "Yeah, I think they will. What about you?"

I think about the dive shop, and Maria, and how great life is here. Images flash through my head and I can't fathom going back. I can't imagine a life away from here anymore, and it's not just because I stopped thinking we'd ever get to go back. But I face an immediate truth that I can't avoid. "He'll never let me stay. If he goes back, I'll have to go with him."

Uncle Mike only replies with, "I know."

 


	23. Lincoln

Every day for the last three months, I’ve caught LJ watching me, or I see Michael tense up when I open my mouth to say something. I know what they’re thinking, because believe me, I’ve been thinking it, too. Chicago calls to me. It’s December and it’s 90 degrees every day. Christmas is a couple weeks away and I’m wearing board shorts and surfing on my day off. It’s ridiculous.

 

But here we are and here we’ll stay. Sara is just going into her fifth month of pregnancy, and she’s beautiful. She’s healthy and rosy and wonderful, and I’ve convinced her that the only penance she ever has to pay for what happened the night of the escape is putting up with me for the rest of her life. When I said that to her, though, she was underneath me and I was inside her and she purred that it didn’t feel like penance at all, so I must know nothing about Catholic rituals.

 

After she kissed me like a 50-dollar whore I assured her that she had no apparent knowledge of good Catholic traditions either and she said, “We went to the Methodist Church.”

 

“Oh, well, then, we don’t have anything to feel guilty for, do we?” I’d quipped.

 

Even a month later, I smile remembering that. That was a hot night, which as she’s gotten larger with her pregnancy we’ve had to get creative. Things between us seem to get better all the time, and I don’t mean the sex. Though it’s true that the longer we’re together, the better we can read each other and the better we are at meeting each other’s needs, it’s still not the heart of it. The baby, and looking forward to the baby together, has really made us happy.

 

Has really made  _ me _ happy.

 

Sara found the peace she needed about her father in knowing that he tried to set things right in his final moments. Any hate or anger she held on to up to that point flew away with the tears she shed the night we learned of it. She has grown quite content with our situation, and even when I asked her about going to back to Chicago, just to go back, not to face the charges against her, she merely shrugged and said, “I’ll be happy wherever we are, Lincoln.”

 

She isn’t looking for a physical location for a home, and as far as she’s concerned, me and the baby, we’re her home. Michael and LJ are bonuses, but bonuses she’s very fond of and I can’t imagine ripping them all apart. Because it would be like ripping my own heart out to separate any of us, even though the weather doesn’t match the time of year.

 

So we’ve been living life as though nothing changed with the news from the States. Michael later told me it was our father who delivered the information. When he told me that Veronica had been buried in Sunrise near Mom I had an overwhelming feeling of knowing I wanted to go to her grave, and have an actual place where I could say goodbye to her. But I haven’t mentioned that to Sara, because it’s not the only reason I want to go back, it’s just one of many.

 

None of the reasons I want to go back overrule the fact that Sara would have to pay for a crime that she’s more than paid for already in my opinion, and while we’re all fairly certain she wouldn’t face jail time, it seems silly to tempt fate while she’s pregnant. So for now, the only plans to go back to Chicago are far in the future, long after next April, long after the baby comes.

 

And I can live with that, because the here and the now is the best it’s ever been for me, and longing for winter storms and snow banks seems like a small sacrifice when I compare it with everything else.

  
  
  
  


 

“So guess what I saw today?” Sara says as we’re getting ready for bed.

 

“What?”

 

“I said, ‘guess.’”

 

I look over at her as she’s pulling one of my t-shirts on over her head. “Do we have to do this? I’m tired.”

 

“Just guess,” she insists.

 

“You saw…a three legged dog.” I pull off my own clothes and get into bed naked. She likes something to keep her shoulders warm, but I never get cool enough here. That’s one of my reasons for wanting to go home.

 

“No, I saw Michael…kissing Marcella.”

 

My eyes jerk back to her face. “No shit?” I ask. Marcella, Maria’s older, and may I add, voluptuous, sister started coming around a couple months back, but it seemed that the attention was only one-sided. She obviously thought my brother was all that but he seemed to think she was just a nice girl who he had to be kind to because she was the sister of his employee.

 

“I went downstairs to see if you were back from the scuba training thing and they were standing in the storage room doorway. Well, standing? He had her pressed up against the doorjamb.” She widens her eyes and gives me a sexy look. “I mean pressed between him and the doorjamb, you know, like this,” she slaps her hands together hard and twists her palms against each other.

 

“Did you watch them?” I ask, winking at her.

 

“For a minute, I did, because I was so surprised.” She moves over to the bed, which I’ve already climbed into, and sits down with her back to me on the edge closest to me. “Considering that I didn’t even think he liked her, I was surprised at how—“ she clears her throat nervously, but then seems unable to finish.

 

I’m not sure what she’s getting at and I dip my head when she drops my gaze by turning her head away from me. “What?” I reach over automatically to touch the slight swell of her belly. Slipping my hand under the cotton t-shirt, I palm her and ask teasingly, “You jealous?”

 

“No!” she says sharply, her eyes flashing up to mine. “Well, I—maybe, I don’t know. It was weird.” Her hand covers mine against her belly and I wait for her to finish her thought. “I guess, maybe in a strange way I do think of all of you as mine. It wasn’t like I was jealous in the way that I wanted to  _ be _ Marcella, or anything, and of course, I want Michael to…you know…”

 

“Get some?” I ask, smirking at her.

 

She rolls her eyes and turns her head to look more steadily at me. “I want him to be happy, and being alone all the time can’t be very fulfilling… I don’t know. I’m just crazy. It’s the pregnancy. It made me feel sort of…sad, I guess. We can’t all live like this forever, you know. Once the baby comes, we’ll need a bigger house, Lincoln. And if Michael falls in love with someone, well, then he’ll want to live with her and have his own family. Eventually LJ will want to be on his own too, you know?”

 

“How can you be having empty-nest syndrome when you’re five months pregnant?” I ask, sliding down the bed a bit so I’m behind her. I tug her back against my chest and kiss her ear. “You just got used to having all these boys around you, but you’ll be okay when there’s other women around. You’ll see.”

 

“When will I see that?” she asks with some derision.

 

“Didn’t I tell you? We’re having a little girl.”

 

I move my hand warmly over her belly and she sighs sweetly. “We are? How do you figure that?”

 

“Too much testosterone around here. We gotta have some balance.”

 

She laughs softly and her head falls back into the curve of my shoulder. She turns her face towards mine so our lips can touch. “I love you,” she whispers just before we begin kissing.

 

Lately, I’ve found myself saying things in my head like:  _ I love how Sara smells _ .  _ I love how Sara looks, pregnant with my baby _ .  _ I love how Sara reaches for my hand and puts it on her belly when the baby moves even though it’s so slight I can’t feel it yet _ . I love how Sara…does everything. But even in my head I never say that I just love her. I love what she does, or how she does it, or how it makes me feel, but to just call it love…well, I’m just a chicken shit, and I know that. To think it, and especially saying it out loud is like inviting something bad to happen. I just can’t bring myself to do it, but somehow that doesn’t hinder her at all. If anything, she’s been more loving towards me than ever before, both in gesture and in word. I’m so unworthy of her and the happiness I’ve been given because of her and I have no idea how to show to her other than waiting on her hand and foot. I do everything I can, I try to be as thoughtful as I can be (which is to say more thoughtful than ever before in my life) and it makes her smile, and sometimes it makes her cry, but she always says that’s just the baby.

 

Though my mind is on all of my shortcomings, my body responds to the playful bounty of her tongue on my lips and in my mouth. When she pulls back, I groan at the loss. “Lincoln, can’t you feel that?” she asks breathlessly.

 

“Of course, I can feel it,” I say, panting slightly and pulling her back against me to make sure she can feel my burgeoning erection.

 

“No, not that,” she says, her hand pressing my hand more firmly to her belly. “ _ That _ !”

 

She leans back and her belly thrusts forward just a little more and I do feel it: a very slight movement beneath my hand that isn’t Sara. “Oh, my gosh,” I mutter against her neck, where I’ve buried my lips.

 

“Hi, Daddy,” she says with a laugh, moving my hand lower down as the baby seems to shift around a bit. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’m so glad you can finally feel it,” she whispers, her other hand reaching awkwardly back to pat my leg.

 

I can feel tears in my eyes and then against my skin as they escape my eyelids. Now I feel like the emotional pregnant woman. “Sara,” I say quietly. “Thank you.”

 

“Thank you?” she questions. “For what?”

 

I take a deep breath, lift my head from her neck and wipe the tears away from my face with my free hand. “For giving me this, for…making me so happy.”

 

She turns to look at me and her face becomes very somber. “Are you, Lincoln? Are you happy?”

 

I can't look away from her, from the need that is so great in her eyes. This is what she's been wanting, perhaps more than hearing I love her. “Yes. I’m very happy. You’ve helped me find it again. Thank you.” I lean into her and kiss her lips, very lightly.

 

Her arms wrap around my neck, squeezing ferociously. “I love you, so much. And you’ve made me so happy, too.”

 

 

 

A few days later, I’m in the storage room of the shop while Sara is waiting on a customer. I hear the bell jingle over the door and then Michael and LJ come in, laughing about something. “Hey, one of you, come back here,” I shout out and LJ appears a moment later.

“What’s up, Dad?” he asks.

“I need you to help me move this table out. Sara and I just had a idea for a display.”

As we drag the 6-foot long table out, I point with my head so LJ knows to turn towards the surfboard section. Michael says to Sara, “I’m gonna go grab some lunch, then I’ll be back down here so you can take off.”

“All right,” Sara replies. LJ and I get the table around in front of the big window and I’m shoving it up against the wall when the bell jingles again, and another customer walks in. I hear Sara offer a friendly, “Good afternoon!”

“Hello,” a man’s voice replies but from where I’m standing, I can’t see the guy. LJ however is several feet away from me and his head turns automatically and he gasps.

“What?” I ask.

His wide eyes fly back to mine. “FBI,” he whispers.

“Are you Sara Tancredi?” the man asks.

I dash around LJ and back up to the counter just as Sara opens her mouth to say, “Who are you?”

That’s when the guy, the guy that I threatened with a squirt gun and wrestled LJ away from in an elevator flips open a wallet, showing her his badge. “Agent Mahone, FBI,” he says calmly, his gaze never leaving her face, even though I’ve come to a halt next to him.

“A little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?” I ask, wondering if there’s anything I can do to get Sara out of the store. Frantically I scream my brother’s name in my mind.

“My jurisdiction is people, Mr. Burrows. Wherever they go, I’ve got jurisdiction.” He finally turns toward me, and lowers his sunglasses slowly before taking them off. “Of course, you know I’m not here for you, don’t you?”

I want to deck him and grab Sara and run like hell, but I know that isn’t the solution. As if she’s anticipating something violent from me, her hand shoots across the counter and wraps around my upper arm. “Lincoln, it’s all right.”

My gaze shifts helplessly to her and I shake my head. “No, no.”

“Do we have to leave right now?” Sara asks Agent Mahone.

“It would be best, Ms. Tancredi.”

I barrel around him, saying, “Let me go get some stuff, we’ll all go.”

“You can follow us, if you like, but I only have plane tickets for myself and the prisoner,” Mahone says, causing me to stop and turn around. “She goes with me.” He looks back at Sara. “If you’re not going to put up a fuss, I’ll even let you go without handcuffs.” His gaze drops to her belly, which protrudes just slightly from her tank top. “How far along are you?” he asks.

“Twenty-six weeks,” Sara says, and her voice is incredibly steady, like she knew this would happen somehow. I feel like a fucking idiot that I never thought they’d find us, not now, not after all this time.

“You can’t just take my wife outta here,” I say, the words fall out of my mouth before I’ve even thought them.

His gaze moves to me. “Actually I can, she’s under arrest for a crime. But as her husband, you do have certain rights, should she be brought to trial or imprisoned.”

“She shouldn’t fly while she’s pregnant,” I say, another desperate move on my part. The only thing I know for sure Sara can’t do is scuba dive. Really the only thing I know is my chest feels like it’s being ripped open.

Sara moves over to me, her hand reaching up to touch my face. “Lincoln, it will be all right. I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”

Because it’s all I can think to do and I feel like the whole world is crashing down around me, I wrap my arms around her hard, as though she’s trying to run away and maybe I can hold her to me through sheer force of will. “Sara,” I croak, my face pressing tightly to her shoulder.

“You wanted to go back to Chicago, anyway, see you’re right, we do always get what we want.”

“No, no, I don’t want this. I don’t. I want us to be here, to stay right here,” I whisper anxiously.

A moment later, I hear Michael say, “What’s going on?” I lift my head and see that LJ has gone and gotten him.

“Agent Mahone, FBI,” Mahone says, flashing his badge again. “It’s nice to formally meet you, Mr. Scofield. All your planning really helped us resolve a lot of this. We’ve been searching for you further out on the Darien Gap, and I was going to leave Panama City early this morning when I had this feeling, a hunch really. And that led me to a doctor who told me about a patient he has, a pregnant woman and a group of Americans who own a little dive shop, and  _ voila! _ , here I am. You’re a genius, you really are.”

Michael doesn’t respond; he just looks at me and then at Sara. “I’m sorry,” he says, taking a step towards us.

“No, Michael, it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault,” she says firmly. She has one arm around my neck and she reaches with the other for him. When he’s in her embrace as well, I hear her say, “LJ, get over here.”

Then we’re all wrapped around her, hugging each other with her at the center and I truly begin to understand. We’ve only survived because she held us together. Each of us, in our own grief, and our separate but together male way of handling things—not Michael, not LJ, and most especially, not me, we would never have made it this far without her. And how in the world can I let Mahone take her away, take her from my sight and my side, take her and my baby?

She’s the one to disengage us because we’d probably just stay like that all day, guarding her, keeping her from him. She kisses Michael’s cheek and LJ’s forehead and I hear her whisper, “You take care of your Dad.”

Then she turns back to me and wraps her arms around my neck, holding me tight. “It’s going to be fine,” she says again, but I can hear her tears now, and feel them against my skin. “I always knew it wouldn’t be over, not until I did this. I have to do this, Lincoln. Even if he didn’t come for me, I have to do it.”

She kisses my earlobe, soft and tender. “I love you,” she breathes, and it echoes through my ear, through my heart, through my entire body.

My arms are around her, the baby pressed between us and I can feel the little flutters that get stronger every day. I sink to my knees in front of her and I place my mouth on her belly. For all the tragedy I’ve witnessed, for the loved ones I’ve lost, I finally realize, it’s the things left undone, the things left unsaid that make it a tragedy. It’s not losing someone you love, it’s having not told them or shown them enough what they mean to you. It’s knowing the opportunities were before you and yet you didn’t take them, again and again and again. Lifting my head, I press my fingers to her belly and I look into her eyes, and with all my heart I finally say what I’ve been feeling for such a long time. “Sara, I love you. I love you both, so much.”

Tears pour down her face, and if could rip my eyes away from her, I’d see that Michael and LJ are crying too. “I love you,” she repeats, her hand brushing across my face. “That’s all I need,” she says softly. “We’ll be fine,” she states and somehow it’s the truest thing I’ve ever heard.


	24. Sara

Within three hours of his appearance at the shop and my gathering up some items I’d need for the journey, we are settling into our first class seats aboard a flight leaving for O’Hare. As I buckle my seatbelt, Agent Mahone says, “So I had you pegged all wrong.”

 

He hasn’t spoken much. Not in the car on the way here, not in the long processing of me as a prisoner, because I have no identification proving I’m Sara Tancredi, all of that was destroyed long ago. Now that we’re sitting down and I’m starting to contemplate just what this might mean for myself and my child, not to mention Lincoln, Michael and LJ who promised me they would be out on the next available flight back to Chicago, he wants to get chatty.

 

I want him to be nice to me, so the best thing I can think of is to be polite in response. “How’s that?” I ask. “Thought you’d find me all strung out somewhere?”

 

“No, I assumed you were with Scofield. It never occurred to me that you were with Burrows.” His eyes cut to me, away from the aisle of the plane. “On paper, you seem much more suited to the younger brother.”

 

I feel myself smiling, and it’s not a forced expression. “On paper, I suppose the entire world would look different.”

 

“When did you get married?”

 

“We’re not married, he was just trying to think of a reason why you couldn’t take me away. See, Michael would never have done that. He would have approached it from an analytical standpoint.”

 

“Burrows is more emotional, I know. The day they took his son from the courthouse, that pretty much summed them up for me. What I’m getting at is that I assumed you left the door unlocked for Scofield, not for Burrows.”

 

“I didn’t leave the door unlocked on purpose.” I’ve already practiced this, even though Michael said they can’t hold me on anything related to him and the escape, I’m not going to trust this guy any further than I can throw him.

 

“Right,” Mahone says, a little giggle at the end of the word. “Not that it matters, all of that is considered closed. I couldn’t get any of you on anything related to the escape now if you gave me a written, signed statement. Whoever ironed out the deals for those boys did it in an ironclad way that makes them untouchable for the rest of their lives.” He pauses, his eyes looking right into mine. “And by association, you.”

 

“So, if all you’re getting me for is drug theft, why all the trouble? I can’t imagine that I’m the worst of those on your ticket. And you know as a first time offender, I’m not going to get a very heavy sentence.”

 

“I had to prove I could find Scofield. I had to prove it to myself.” He shakes his head, a slight chagrined feeling about it. “I’ve never seen planning like that, every avenue thought about, a contingency for every possible situation. He ought to work for the FBI.”

 

I laugh because I can’t stop myself. “Good luck getting him away from that dive shop.”

 

“Why haven’t they gone home? Was it because of you?”

 

I shrug. “In part, at least Lincoln’s part. Michael, and LJ, for that matter, they love Panama. They love this life. Who would have guessed? Not Michael Scofield, I’d bet. He just had to have a plan, I don’t think when he made it he knew it was the plan that would be for the rest of his life. It was just to have a place to land. He just happened to land exactly where he belonged.”

 

“So will you tell me?” he asks. “The door. You left it unlocked for which brother?”

 

I search his eyes and I see nothing but curiosity. Any maliciousness he may have felt when he first started tracking my family has transformed into something else, perhaps that of urban legend, who knows? I smile again and tell him the truth. “I left it unlocked for both of them.”

  
  
  
  


 

“If you’ll just sign here, Ms. Tancredi,” the assistant district attorney hands me a pen and shows me the bottom of my statement, where the signature line is. “Then you’re free to go. You’ll need to check in, once a month, at this number.” She hands me a business card of a probation officer by the name of Joe Wheeler. “Officer Wheeler may want to see you on occasion, but a phone call is usually all he’ll require. When the 18 months is up, you will be free to leave the state of Illinois on your on recognizance. If you want to travel within the U.S. over the next 18 months, you just need to clear it with Officer Wheeler.”

 

I ask the question I’m fairly certain I already know the answer to: “But leaving the country isn’t permitted, correct?”

 

“That is correct,” she states. Her name is Patricia Johnson, and she’s so buttoned up and precise I think she would have been a perfect match for Michael, before he went to Panama. She folds the paper I just signed and sticks it in her briefcase before shutting it. “Thank you, Ms. Tancredi. I do believe there is someone waiting for you outside.”

 

I get up to follow her out, knowing Lincoln is there, waiting impatiently. It’s been five days since I got back to Chicago, and he came in the day after me, but we have not as yet had any contact, except when I saw him this morning as he came into the courthouse. The media frenzy that has erupted with the Scofield-Burrows men being back in the States sort of overshadowed my own crime (not that I’m complaining) and I actually had to meet with several different lawyers and/or prosecutors to iron out the deal. I was in custody the entire time because I am considered a flight risk, but obviously from the terms of my probation, that wasn’t even a stipulation to my agreement of no contest to the charges brought against me.

 

Now that I’m being released, with my freedom somewhat limited, but mostly intact, I feel as though I have accomplished everything I need to. I can face the rest of my life knowing I took care of the things that ate at my conscience.

 

Lincoln wraps me in his arms as I walk out of the interrogation room. He holds me tightly, and I can feel him trembling. Placing my hand on the back of his neck, I whisper in his ear, “See? I told you, everything would be fine.”

 

He just shakes his head and holds me tighter. I feel his lips against my neck and the trembling intensifies, like now that it’s over he can’t keep a grip on himself any longer. I pull back and touch his face softly. “Let’s go.”

 

“Michael’s got a car around back for us, so we don’t have to walk through all the reporters out front.” He leads me out into the hallway to the elevator and we go down to the first floor and get off, taking the stairs to the ground floor. As we edge out the back into the parking garage, I see Michael gun a black Lexus forward and we jump in the backseat.

 

“You all right?” he asks, catching my gaze in the rearview mirror.

 

I smile, and look at LJ as he turns around in the seat so he’s facing me. “I’m just fine.” When LJ reaches out to hug me, I embrace him awkwardly around the headrest. “Everything’s just fine.”

 

“Except…” Michael nudges.

 

“I can’t leave the country for 18 months.”

 

“Ah, fuck,” Lincoln mutters. He wraps his fingers around mine and I look at him questioningly. “I want to go back,” he says.

 

“You wanted to come home.”

 

“This isn’t home anymore.”

 

“Dad…” LJ starts, and the tone of his voice is wheedling already.

 

“I already told you. If we have to stay, you might as well finish school. Maybe this was meant to be. It’s not like we need two dropouts in this family.”

 

I’d like to add my two cents, but I don’t want to cause a fight. I see LJ bite down on his tongue, but he stays kneeling in the front seat looking at his Dad and me. “When the 18 months are up, I’m going back to Panama,” he says stubbornly.

 

“We all will,” Lincoln states, and then I see him look at Michael via the rearview mirror. “Well, the three of us will. When are you going back?”

 

Michael shoots a glance over his shoulder at us and then looks back at the road as he merges into traffic. “I leave at the end of the week.” I can’t help the gasp that escapes my throat. “I can’t leave the shop with just Marcella and Maria in charge for that long. They can’t teach scuba lessons, or anything,” he says defensively.

 

“No, it’s fine, Michael,” I say, trying to be reassuring. “I just…” I shake my head and squeeze Lincoln’s fingers. “I’ll miss you. We all will. But you should go back. You should make sure we have a home to come back to.” I look back at LJ, who I can tell is still trying to come up with some argument as to why he should go back with his uncle. “Your dad’s right,” I say softly, touching his arm. “Besides, don’t you want to be here when the baby comes?”

 

The sheepish expression all three of these men share comes over LJ’s face and he sighs half-heartedly. “Well, sure I do. I mean, yeah. Of course. I just…” and then he grins, a pure kid expression. “I don’t want to go back to school. But I will,” he adds quickly when Lincoln makes a growling sound in his throat. “I will, Dad.”

 

I sit back in the seat as Michael maneuvers us around the streets of Chicago with no problems. “Well, we better have Christmas early if we’re not going to be together on the actual day.”

 

“Woo hoo!” LJ hoots, turning around to sit down in his seat. “We need to go buy a turkey,” he says excitedly.

 

Lincoln’s hand covers my belly and our eyes meet. He has this way of smiling so that his lips barely move, but the joy in his eyes beams out at me. It’s one of my favorite expressions to see on his face, and the fact that it’s there when he was so upset just a few moments before comforts me. The baby promptly kicks, a harder and more distinct movement than either of us have ever felt before. “Whoa,” Lincoln says softly.

 

“I love you,” I whisper.

 

He leans over and kisses my mouth before dropping down to kiss my belly. “I love you,” he says in response

  
  
  


 

“Hi, I’m Sara, and I’m an addict.”

 

A chorus of “Hi Sara’s” come back at me. Lincoln is sitting on the front pew, watching me steadily.

 

“I’ve got seven months today,” I say and the small crowd erupts into applause. “And I just wanted to say…” my hand circles over my belly. “I just wanted to share with all of you. My most recent ‘slip up,’” I give Lincoln a little wink with that terminology, “almost killed me. I almost died, and if that wasn’t enough to scare me straight, I had these other enormous events unfold in my life that gave me some perspective.” I take a deep breath and vocalize what I’ve learned. “In reality, I did die that night. The old me died, and the new me was born into a dark hospital room. And now, my whole life is different. I’m happy, in a good relationship, which is a miracle for me, and I’m getting ready to have a baby, obviously. I just wanted to say, to any of you out there wondering if you can ever come back, if you can ever get to the place that it’s worth it…I just wanted to tell you, you can. You can, and it’s worth it. Don’t give up. You only need one person to believe in you, and that’s yourself. When you believe in yourself, it allows the other people in your life to believe in you, too.” I feel the tears on my cheeks and I don’t try to wipe them away, I just smile through them. “That’s it, that’s all I wanted to say.”

 

“Thank you, Sara,” a woman calls out from near the back. “Thank you for sharing.”

 

I nod my head at her and then make my way over to Lincoln. He wraps his arm around me and we sit, listening to the others who want to share today. I feel a sense of liberation beyond the rules of my probation. What I have now is untouchable by the things that used to tie me down. It’s unbelievable and wonderful and I put my hand on his knee, squeezing it gently. It isn’t perfect, we still have the same problems we always did, but now we know how to share the burdens together. Now we’re united, and that means everything. Everything for each of us and for LJ and for Michael and for our new baby. We’ll fight to survive. And because we’ve been through so much, we know how.

  
  
  


Lincoln laces our fingers and we walk through the wrought iron gate of the cemetery. He leads me right to his mother’s grave and I place the bouquet of flowers I’m carrying at the base of the gravestone. “Hi, Mom,” he says, crouching down so he’s level with the headstone. “This is Sara.” He looks up at me and then says, “And this is your new grandbaby. She’s not here, exactly, yet. But she will be in about another month or so.”

 

I feel somewhat awkward, as if I’m really meeting his mother, so I just say “Hi,” in a small voice.

 

Lincoln lets go of my fingers and turns so he’s facing me. “I wanted to do this here, with her watching.” He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small dark box. He drops one knee so he’s kneeling on it and rests his elbow on his other knee so that the box is propped up in front of me. “Sara, I love you. And I think we should get married, not just talk about it anymore. And I want to get married before the baby comes next month, too. So will you marry me, right away?” He opens the box and a beautiful diamond twinkles up at me. I look at it, and then I look back at him. “I know this isn’t as romantic as it should be…”

 

I wave my hand to silence him. “It’s perfect, Lincoln. It’s perfect. Yes, I’ll marry you, right away.” He smiles, a full, beautiful smile and then he pulls the ring out of the box. “But, the ring isn’t going to fit, or if it does, we’ll just have to have it resized after the baby comes anyway.” His smile falters and I say, “But I can put it on this chain, and wear it around my neck.”

 

Standing up, he helps me get the necklace off and then back on with the ring on it. When I turn back to face him, he kisses me sweetly. “I love you,” I say, wrapping my arms around his waist.

 

“There’s another reason I brought you here,” he says lowly.

 

Turning, he pulls me a few feet to the right, and there lies a headstone flat with the ground as opposed to his mother’s that stands up. It reads, “Veronica Elaine Donovan, November 2, 1972 — May 12, 2005.”

 

I look at him, raising my eyebrows. “My father had her buried here,” he explains. He turns back, his gaze resting heavily on the concrete where her name is carved.

 

“I didn’t know they found her. I’m so glad, Lincoln. That was a kind thing, to have her buried here.”

 

He sniffs. “I know.”

 

“That’s what the other bouquet is for, huh? I wondered why you wanted two.”

 

“I haven’t come here. I thought about it, but I wanted you to be with me when I did. I wanted to ask you to marry me here, with them. I wanted Vee to know…” he shudders and then shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he says, as tears start down his cheeks.

 

“We love you, Veronica Donovan,” I say it out loud, my voice raised almost to a shout.

 

“We miss you, baby,” he says, his voice neither as strong nor as loud as mine.

 

“We’ll never forget you, ever,” I say, pressing my arm tight around Lincoln’s waist.

 

“We never could forget you,” he adds. He wipes at his cheek with one jacket sleeve. “I’ll always love you.”

 

“Rest in peace,” I whisper, feeling his sorrow and his liberation just as I’ve felt my own over the last few months.

 

He turns to me and snuggles his face into my neck, holding me gently. “I love you, Sara. I love you, more than I could ever dream.”

 

“I know,” I say simply, because it’s true.

  
  
  


 

When I wake up, the bedroom is dark. I listen carefully, but I realize it wasn’t little baby noises that woke me, instead it’s the sound of a low voice rumbling from the corner of the bedroom where a rocking chair rests.

 

“So that’s how I met your momma,” he continues, his voice very, very quiet. “But I had no idea that she was going to be your momma. Or that I would even get you. But I’m very happy that I got you, you know that? I’m so happy to have you, baby Vee.”

 

I turn over in the bed so I’m facing the corner where he is, and he jumps when I turn the bedside lamp on. “Awww,” he says, looking back down at his daughter. “We woke her up. The whole point of this was to  _ not _ wake her up.”

 

“If you didn’t want to wake me, maybe you should have left the room,” I say somewhat grumpily, though I’m not really angry.

 

“But the rocking chair is in here. Vee wanted to be rocked.”

 

“Is she talking already, at one month old?”

 

“I can read her mind,” he says, giving me a slightly superior look.

 

When Veronica starts to fuss, I arch an eyebrow at him. “I bet I can read her mind now,” I say and I feel my milk let down instantly.

 

He gets up and comes over to the bed so I can feed the baby. Settling down, he pulls me back against his chest so he can observe the process and I get her to latch on without too much difficulty. When he tries to stroke her head with his big fingers, I knock his hand away. “Do not distract her. She needs to focus on eating before she gets too sleepy and then she just uses me as a human pacifier.”

 

Quietly, he removes his hand and lets his chin rest on my shoulder. “I really didn’t mean to wake you, hon,” he says against my ear.

 

“I know, it’s all right. I’m on the schedule now, I wake up at 2, 4 and 6 like clockwork anyway. What were you doing up?”

 

“I stayed up late talking with LJ, he’s all worried Maria will get a new boyfriend with him up here finishing school. So we made a deal, he gets to go back to Panama for June and July, while school’s out.”

 

“Oh, Lincoln, that’s good. I’m glad. He misses it so much, and it’s not just because of Maria.”

 

“I know,” he says, his voice a bit petulant. “I miss it, too.”

 

I lean my head back to look at him. “Are you just ‘the-grass-is-always-greener’ kind of guy or what?”

 

“No, no, and I’m not trying to make you feel bad about it, either. I just keep trying to tell LJ that we all feel the same way, we all miss it, but he’s sort of self-involved. He can only think about himself.”

 

“He’s seventeen. He’s supposed to be self-centered. And,” I say quickly when he opens his mouth, “if you don’t let him go just because you wish you could go, who’s self-centered?”

 

“I’m letting him go!” he says, his voice loud in the quiet room. Veronica lets go of my nipple and looks up at us. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he says softly, his hand palming her head and directing her back to my breast. His lips brush my cheek. “Sorry,” he whispers.

 

“Lincoln, when he goes, you should go too. Not for two months, but for a week or something, you shouldn’t be stuck here because of me.”

 

“No, no.” He turns my head so our eyes lock. “I’m not going anywhere without you. That’s a promise. I mean, I’ll go to the store and shit like that, but I’m not going half a continent away from my girls, no way. When we go back to Panama, we’ll go together, and it will be for good.” He kisses my lips gently. “And, no, I’m not always thinking the grass is always greener some place else. This is the place I want to be, where you and Vee are. That’s it, I swear.”

 

“I won’t be upset if you want to go.”

 

“I don’t want to go, not until you can go too. I promise.”

 

“Lincoln…”

 

“Sara…”

 

“Are you sure?” I ask.

 

With no shadows, pain, or indecision lurking in his beautiful eyes, he looks back at me, and says unwaveringly, “I’m positive.”

  
_ ~fin~ _


End file.
